OLD: Mass Affect
by CuHnadian
Summary: Our lives have gone from teens quietly living in BC Canada, to detectives fighting crime on Mass Effects Citadel. Somebody out there is responsible for this and we will find him, hopefully. Self inserts, Car Chases, Explosions and...Zombies?
1. Prologue

**A/N : Well, here we go my first Fan Fiction. I've written tones of reviews for games in the past, but never wrote actual stories up until recently.**** So this is a SI series with me and my friends, don't worry we don't ever become a merc squad like Dead Echo.**

**Update : I am in the process of rewriting this story to make some changes and improve the plot and characters. Feel free to read this but know that everything that happens won't be canon in my plotline, I'm leaving it here for only the curious who want to see how I started out.**

**Disclaimer : Mass Effect is not owned by me, it is owned by the Bioware. Any other products or companies mentioned in this story are not owned by me either.**

* * *

><p><strong>Mass Affect<strong>

**Prologue**

**June 29th, 2012**  
><strong>7:27am, Earth Time<strong>  
><strong>Unknown Location<strong>

I find it very odd that in the space of just under a year, my life has gone from sitting at a desk all day to pointing a gun at the person who has made my life a living hell.

"Time to choose Lucas. It's your life, or theirs."

I always hated these scenarios in video games, because it seemed like something a lazy writer would just pull out to try and get you to care about what's going on, but I hated them in real life for a different reason. If you're a decent person, the option of going back to a life of normality while everybody else suffers in pain and misery isn't really much of an option. It makes it feel like life is just reminding you that you're here, because you're the most unlucky bastard in the universe.

"It's time to choose."

The person in front of me was only making my frustration worse. Not only was he basically a real life G-Man, but he seemed to know it.

"It's time to choose."

In fact, when I thought about it. As much hell as it was before, it now seemed like bouncing bears from heaven in comparison.

* * *

><p><strong>October 29th, 2011<strong>  
><strong>11:36pm, Earth Time<strong>  
><strong>BC, Canada<strong>

It was night and I had just turned 17. A young adult to some people, though anybody that walked into the house would probably toss that thought out the window.

I was pissing off my friends with the sniper rifle in some Halo split-screen, Bjorn had eaten all the ice cream, Shea had eaten all the chips, Terran was swearing like a sailor because he couldn't do that at his house, Josh was his macho self and Phil and Paul kept using responses that would make a normal person breakdown in frustration. Status quo.

Though, the birthday party was starting to die down. We had some cake, laughed and screamed, got nagged by parents and some prick come up our drive way to give us some junk in a box. _Probably just another stupid thing from my step dads Macleans subscription. Though I don't ever remember them driving to peoples houses to give stuff out, and the guy who was handing them out looked like a real creep._

So I decided to break the silence.

"Anybody up for watching a movie?"

The nods I got suggesting yes.

"Sure, what movie?" Shea asked.

"Hold on, just give me a second." I said as I look through the small selection of films. I watched most movies from my computer or rented one on demand if they didn't have it on Netflix, though one caught my eye.

"How about _Snatch_?"

"What's _Snatch_?" asked Shea again.

"British gangster film, made by the same guy who did _RocknRolla_. One of my personal favorites."

"I'd up for watching it" Shea responds as he puts the Xbox controller away to go sit on the couch facing the big TV.

Everybody else was a little hesitant at first, but soon followed. They seemed to be getting bored of playing games anyways.

"You go set up the movie, I'll go get some drinks." I said as I handed the movie to Bjorn. However I could already feel Phil's response as I opened the door to the kitchen.

"No your not dude, don't lie."

The glare I gave him was probably a little more harsh then I intended, but seriously. _That got old an entire month ago in Skype chats. Well Team-speak chats since Skype now sucks ass. Congratulations Microsoft, you're one of the richest companies in the world yet you can't even properly maintain a fucking messenger program, and what was I going to do? Oh yeah right, get some drinks._

I made my way over to the fridge to find one big bottle of Pepsi that we hadn't used up, however I caught something at the corner of my eye. It was the box carrying some piece of junk that Mom picked up from the creep earlier today. It wasn't important, but I've always been a curious kind of guy. So I made my way over to the box and it looked familiar enough, it had the Macleans logo on there and was about the size of a telephone. Probably some more shit from China that didn't work but like I said, I'm a curious kind of guy. So I brought it over to the kitchen counter pulling out a small knife to cut the tape holding it together. The fact that they actually got someone to deliver it was what made me more curious than usual.

I didn't think that meant whatever they sent was good by any means. I cut the last piece a bit more quickly since I could hear the movie booting up and I wanted to get this over with. I've seen Snatch many times but it didn't stop me from thinking that Guy Richie was a complete genius with everything he directed, except _Swept Away_ of course. I opened the big card-board box and saw a weird black box inside it. _A box inside a box, what the fuck is with companies doing that anywa...No! Stay on track!_

I took the box out and opened it up before I completely lost it and saw some small device that looked like one of those grenades in Mass Effect.

_Wait..._

"Oh shit!"

It was then that the thing lit up and suddenly I became blind and deaf with the only feeling being my face making contact with the floor. I was screaming in pain from the ringing inside my ears but I then also smelled something weird filling the house. _It's like, like some kind of, of..._

"Crap," I muttered just before finally falling unconscious.

* * *

><p><strong>Unknown Date<strong>  
><strong>Unknown Time<strong>  
><strong>Unknown Location<strong>

After I don't know how long, I started to get into my normal wake-up routine. I kept my eyes closed, listened to the sounds, felt the surface I was laying on, then slowly opened my eyes. However, this only led to mass confusion.

_This isn't my house, unless there's some underground looking corridors my parents installed without telling me. _The lighting was dim with the occasional small red light on the wall reflecting off of the grey floors that were also hard as hell, since the bones in my neck and back felt like they were about to disintegrate. I was in my black coat with a t-shirt and jeans from the party but everything else looked different.

_Alright Lucas, just think for a second. You opened a box, you saw a grenade, it went off and now you're here. Question is, where is here? And where is everybody else?_

_Alright that was two questions but...whatever._

"Anybody here? Bjorn? Josh?"

I got nothing in response other than a drip of water.

_Well, this isn't working. Guess I'm going to have to look for them. _I made my way over to the end of a corridor where I found a, _wait a second._

_I've seen these doors, they're the ones in Mass Effect 2. Alright so, creepy guy's in suits showing up at my door, boxes with grenades that blind, deafen and knock me out. Now doors from a Sci-fi video game? __Was there some acid I don't remember taking? Or, am I just going completely insane? Ok you know what, fuck it, lets just open the door. Speaking of which how do I?...uh, shit. Um, maybe this?_

Putting my hand on the green holo-gram seemed to work since I saw a dimly lit room on the other side.

I walked through the open door and stepped into the room. Why I woke up in the corridor rather then here I had no way of answering.

"Anybody here?" I called out as I looked around for people I recognized. _Trash, floor, some drink, light, Shea, someth..._

"Shea!" I quickly walked across the room to find him laying down in the corner.

"Shea, where's everybody else?"

"Wha? I'm fine, thanks for asking."

"Come on, we got to find them." I said offering him a hand getting up. I already knew the question that was coming when he stood up.

"Where the hell are we?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, though there is one weird thing I saw here." Pointing to the door I went through as we both started walking toward it.

A look of confusion on Shea's face appeared as we approached it

"Is that?"

"Yes."

"What the fuck are the doors from Mass Effect doing here?"

"I have absolutely no idea, but I don't like the direction things are taking. Come on, we still need to find the others." I said turning around to go through a door on the left side of the room. As we entered the room, there was still no sign of anyone. _Time to start calling names again._

"Bjorn? Paul? Anybody around?"

"Over here!" My head instantly turned to the left side of the where I saw Bjorn waving at us as he gave Terran a hand getting up.

"You two ok?"

"Yeah," said Terran "We're fine. My back's just really sore right now."

"I'm guessing you haven't seen the others yet as well?" asked Bjorn as he turned to us.

"No, nothing yet,"

"Hello?" I heard someone in the distance yell.

"In here!" I yelled back as we looked over at the door on the other side of the room. Few seconds later and I saw Paul walk through the door with Phil and Josh following him.

"Thank Christ" I muttered as we all met up in the middle of the room.

"Where the hell were you guys?" Paul asked.

"Not too far from here, I ran into Shea on the way and then found Bjorn helping Terran here. Where were you?"

"We were a little ways down the hallway on the other side of that door." Paul said as he gestured the door behind him. "It only went straight and I ran into these two on the way here."

"Anybody mind telling me why there are doors from Mass Effect here?" Phil asked.

"Wish I could." I muttered.

"What's Mass Effect?" Josh asked. Oh yeah that's right, since I lived a long ways away from Josh and him being more out going, he's not as much of a nerd as the rest of us.

"Sci-fi RPG."

"Was it good?"

"That's not really the greatest concern right now, and yes it was." I said looking back at Paul "Did you see any other doors on the way here? These two rooms just lead to a hallway with a dead end."

"Actually we were about to go through a door right in front of us just before we found you guys."

"Well, what are we waiting for then?" I said as I moved past him to get to the door that lead to the hallway Paul and company were on. With everybody else thinking the same thing, we all left.

* * *

><p>Well, we've been walking straight in this hallway for the past ten minutes and it's still the same dimly lit dump that it was when we first woke up.<p>

Though this did give me some time to think things over as the others bickered. Not that I was able to get very far. All I knew was, the creep who gave us the box certainly had nothing to do with Macleans Magazine. Thinking back I probably should have suspected that as soon as I saw him but I was having a party so I didn't really care at the time. The grenade in the box must have somehow combined a flash and gas grenade. The gas obviously knocking all of us out and the flash for making the person opening it have no chance of getting away. Though how the hell that brought us to some fucked up place with endless hallways and doors from a Sci-fi game, I had no idea.

Before I could think much further though, something caught my attention. The hallway was about to turn left after just going straight none stop and I saw some light coming through. I switched into a quick walk getting closer and closer to the turn and then...

An open door that lead outside.

"Fucking finally!" I couldn't help shouting. What ever everybody else was bickering about stopped as we all started jogging to the light at the end of the _very_ long tunnel. As I got closer though, I couldn't help but feel that I had seen the place before. It was obviously some factory but nothing like any of the ones back home. So why did I feel that I saw it before? _Unless...no, no way._

We stepped closer.

_No way!_

We stopped.

"No fucking way."

The factory district, exactly as I remembered it. The scattered crates, raised and lowered platforms, yellow and black markings everywhere and the room we were standing in where Harkin got his ass kicked. If the District from Garrus' loyalty mission wasn't proof then the galactic arm stretching out mile after mile certainly was. With all of us standing in shock and confusion for a good solid minute, Shea finally broke the silence.

"Lucas."

"What?"

"Slap me."

* * *

><p><strong>AN : I hope what you just read didn't suck, and if it did I'm sorry. Big thanks to my mother for beta reading this, which I should mention before you laugh is also a writer. As for the list of inspirations, here we go. ****Inf3ctioNZ, The Naked Pen,** **Thunderfury12124**, **500 Metric Tonnes of Palladium**, **Sarge1995 and Ryan PM****. Make sure to check them out if you haven't. As for this story I've got some pretty crazy stuff planned for later on, but don't expect fire-fights or anything like that in chapters One and Two. Until then, see you next time. PEACE.**


	2. Chapter 1 : Feeling Good

**Chapter 1**

**Unknown Date**  
><strong>Unknown Time<strong>  
><strong>The Citadel<strong>

We were able to get out of the factory district easily enough, getting to the Wards was a different story. We didn't have any money for fast transit even if we could find one, so we were forced to walk around seeing factory after factory for what felt like hours. Though it did give us plenty of time to ascend the mountain of questions we got from Terran and Josh.

Once we finally reached an area with people we sat down in a cafe which revealed that we were in Zekera Ward. I made it clear to stick with populated areas, the last thing we needed was to get mugged by a Batarian in some alleyway. I could see plenty of aliens giving us odd looks though, probably from our clothes. Everybody else was bickering while Bjorn and I sat silently thinking. None of us had a great amount of confidence, we were somehow in a world that should be fiction with no money, no food, no shelter and even with Phil and I knowing Mass Effect inside and out we only had a slight idea of where we were. Even though it was a pain, starting off in the factory district was lucky. Things could have gone so much worse if we started off in any of the other galactic arms on the Citadel. I just wanted to find a quiet place to crash and get my head straight. Of course we needed money and the hotel wasn't going to take 170 year old Canadian dollar bills. Right then though, I had an epiphany.

"Guys."

"What?"

"Get out everything your carrying."

"Why?" asks Terran.

"Just do it."

About twenty seconds went by as everyone put what they had on the table. Everything from wallets to cell phones to iPods or a Zune in Bjorn's case.

"Okay." Josh starts with a confused look. "Why did you ask us to do that?"

"I don't know what year it is but either way you look at," I said holding up my wallet. "This stuff is really fucking old now. So, almost everything here is useless. However, everybody else is going to see these as antiques." I said smirking. "Before we do anything though, I want to find an pubic terminal. Like I said we still have no idea what year it is and we can also find out how much our stuff is worth, I don't feel like leaving short changed."

"So we go to the lower wards, find a merchant, sell our stuff, buy some new tech and go from there?" Phil said.

"That's the gist of it, yeah."

"Well," said Shea. "we've got nothing else to go on, I say we do it."

"Lets get going then."

* * *

><p>It was about another ten minutes walking before we made it to the markets and I was able to find a public terminal. Seeing it was kind of weird though, the keyboard was identical to the ones back on earth, except with touch holograms. Thankfully they actually worked, so finding out stuff was pretty easy. I looked at the bottom right corner to see the date staring right at me.<p>

"March 6th, 2181..." I said slowing down at the end.

"So we're here two years before Mass Effect starts?" Phil asked rhetorically.

I couldn't help but lean back in the chair. I knew we would get killed joining up with Shepard if we some how convinced him or her to recruit us but still. Now we couldn't just see everything like it's the game with no respawns. We had to actually live and survive here.

After thirty seconds of silence staring blankly at the date I leaned forward to type. "Lets just think about think about that later, we've got find out how much our stuff is worth."

"Probably a couple grand, should be able to hold us over until we find some jobs." Said Paul as I typed in 'Zune' into the search tab.

_I really don't know what to expect, we should definitely have enough to survive for..._

**Zune Digital Media Player**  
><strong>Original Maker - Microsoft<strong>  
><strong>Status - Very Rare<strong>  
><strong>Estimated Value $150,000 - 200,000<strong>

* * *

><p>After our initial shock, we figured out that all of our stuff totaled to one million credits. So we made our way down to the lower markets looking for a merchant. The first one I saw was surprisingly run by a Human. I didn't remember seeing any in the original game, most of them were run by Turians, Salarians or Volus. I decided it was probably best to just shrug it off.<p>

"Hello there," he said with a fake smile on his face. "you lot look like you came right out of the early 2000s."

I pasted on an equally fake smile. "Well the clothes aren't for sale. These however," I said pulling a twenty dollar bill out of my wallet. "are a different matter." His eyes widening was the only response I needed.

"Is that what I think it is?" he said, with his smile suddenly being genuine.

"Yep, real Canadian currency from the early 21st century."

"Wow," he muttered as he scanned the bill with his Omni-tool. "This might be stupid question but do you have any more of these?"

"I'm glad you asked." I smirked as we put our stuff on the counter. He looked like he was going to faint as he gazed over the devices and objects.

"So, you want to sell all of these?" he asked cautiously.

"Yeah, as long as you pay for it." I said crossing my arms. "Well give them to you for one million credits."

The guy tried to give me a look suggesting that I was in over my head, however it's easy to tell that it was just as fake as his earlier smile.

"I don't know, seems expensive."

"Then fuck it, I think we'll keep 'em." I started to grab some of the objects away from the table.

"Wait, wait!." He nearly yelled. "Fine, you have a deal."_  
><em>

I smirked and let go of the objects as he ducked behind the counter to get something. Soon enough his head popped out again like a gopher in a hole.

"Here's your payment sir," he said as he handed me what I could only guess was a Credit chit. "pleasure doing business with you."

"Thanks." I said as we all walked away from the merchant.

"That actually went pretty well." Bjorn said as we all stopped near the stairs where I'm sure Shepard met Conrad Verner.

"So what's next?" asked Terran.

"Well, we should probably get some equipment and supplies, since we're in the market we might as well start with some Omni-tools."

"Uh, one question." asked Josh.

"Yeah?"

"What the fuck is an Omni-tool?"

Well I guess we didn't answer allof his questions.

* * *

><p>"Dude, this thing is amazing!"<p>

I wasn't as bowled over by it as Josh but I did have to admit they were pretty fucking cool. Best part was I got to transfer the music from my USB stick onto the Omni-tool, I was so glad that I didn't sell it to the merchant. I probably would have gone mad if I didn't have any music to listen to. Aside from that we also got some travel bags and filled them with clothes, food and drinks. When we all met up it was nightfall, so we needed to make a b-line for the nearest hotel. I did want to find a more permanent place or places quickly though. Hotels weren't cheap back home and I was sure it was the same song and dance here.

There was an Asari at the front desk with the typical hotel employee fake smile. Then again it's better then her looking like someone just shat on her desk.

"Hello gentleman, I imagine you need a few rooms for the night."

"Yeah." I nodded, opening up my Omni-tool for the payment.

"That will be 2727 credits please."

"Jesus Christ," I muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing fine, here." I quickly said paying right after wards.

She reached under the desk and gave me three tiny cards, which I guessed were the room keys.

"Thank you very much sir, you have rooms 201, 202 and 203. Enjoy your stay."

"Thanks." I said walking away from the counter and headed towards the lobby. As we all walked out though I noticed that there were no stairs. There was only an open elevator. We all said what where thinking excluding Josh.

"Shit."

* * *

><p><strong>March 7th, 2181<strong>  
><strong>5:12am, Citadel Time<strong>  
><strong>Granville Hotel, Zakera Ward<strong>

It was early morning on the Citadel and I was down in the lobby of the hotel using one of the public terminals. The Omni-tool did have access to the Extranet but it was like browsing the web with a phone. I was mainly searching for jobs and housing. I did find some apartments that would be easy to live in and keep up with payments.

_Since we're now in the Mass Effect universe though I'm not sure how I would adapt my talents and make a living. I guess I could do voice work but I don't really know the entertainment industry here all that well. So being a critic or an entertainment journalist are probably not going to happen. I'm also very good at golf but never quite made pro status and things tend to change at least a bit when you're 170 years in the future. I doubt Sony Vegas still exists, so editing is out of the question._

Though one caught my eye when I was searching. C-Sec was opening up a lot of spots because the council wanted to stop having the large majority of officers being Turians and get some more species in the mix.

Being a cop was always in the back of my mind but I had many other talents that would get me much further, as well as not getting me killed. However I was kind of out of options here and I would also be in a spot to actually help people more then I ever would being a sales clerk, as well as earn a decent wage.

_I guess C-Sec it is then, and hey maybe I'll even get to meet Garrus. Though probably not since C-Sec has over two hundred thousand agents. Well, I guess I should go tell everybody else about the plan. I'm not sure what they're going to do for work but that's not up to me. If this is our new home, then we better make the most of it._

* * *

><p>Once I got back to the hotel room, I saw Terran and Shea were still sleeping. So I was going to have to wait till later to discuss what was next. I quietly made my way over to the outside deck and took a seat as the artificial morning sky started shining.<p>

**Now Playing : Nina Simone - Feeling Good (Troublemaker Remix)**


	3. Chapter 2 : How You Like Me Now

**Chapter 2**

**March 14th, 2181**  
><strong>9:10 AM, Citadel Time<strong>  
><strong>Lucas' Apartment, Zakera Ward<strong>

It was now a week since everything had happened. Considering the circumstances however, it was actually going pretty good. Turned out that the apartments I saw online were part of a new tower block not too far from the C-Sec Academy. All of us got our own respective apartments, though I agreed to have mine be the meeting place. I hosted the majority of the time back home so I was already used to it. As for living in the place, it wasn't too bad. Every suite had sound proofing, eliminating my big gripe about tower blocks. It wasn't all good however. I spent the first few days locked up in my place, dwelling on the thoughts of my friends and family that weren't here. Being my family's only child I knew that no matter what happened back home, they wouldn't be able to help but feel a sense of guilt. Not being able to leave a message saying that I was okay was what really made it hit home. I may not have wept in years but I couldn't help it and I'm sure I wasn't the only one.

I eventually got back to the task at hand, even if it was a slow process. I was able to arrange a meeting with Pallin on the 14th at 9:30. I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous due to Pallin - from what I remember - not being a big fan of humans but if a drunk lazy prick like Harkin could become a C-Sec officer then so could I. Even without any experience in investigation work or degrees of any kind.

_Ah, who am I kidding? I'm fucked._

* * *

><p><strong>20 Minutes Later<strong>

"Lucas Raycevich."

I looked up seeing a disgruntled Turian waving me over in a hallway leading to Pallin's office.

"Pallin's right in that room, good luck"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." I shot back. I didn't stop in front of the door to take a deep breath or anything. If I was going to be denied a job, I would rather have it done sooner rather than later. When I walked in I saw Pallin sitting behind a desk, looking exactly as I remembered. He may not have been the nicest person but there's no denying that his voice and face tattoos were pretty bad ass.

"Go ahead and take a seat."

I complied since I didn't feel like standing anyway. He held a datapad in his hands that probably showed my profile.

"Well Mr. Raycevich, you didn't come here with much information about yourself. I know some basics, such as you're an Earth-born that moved to the Citadel only a week ago." He tried to give me a look as if I was going to lose the job right then and there but he was just trying to intimidate me. " You're _very _young as well, just seventeen years of age and you're here trying to apply for a job as an officer." By now he set down the datapad and stared at me blankly.

"You are one ambitious being Mr. Raycevich."

"What's wrong with that?"

"The ambitious get into trouble."

"And we'd still be stuck on Earth if it wasn't for those same people."

Pallin was probably used to people just sitting there taking his shit since his face gave a look of surprise and annoyance. "You must understand some of my concerns Mr. Raycevich."

"Like what?"

"You've got barely anything on your records. For all I know you could get spending your nights dumping your head into a box of red sand while reading Fornax." Giving me an accusing look.

"Firstly, I don't think it's possible to pull off both of those things simultaneously. Secondly, I don't even drink, let alone get high on that shit. Thirdly I saw some bald drunk guy coming out of Chora's Den mid-day, who was a C-Sec officer. A little hypocritical don't ya think?" The last bit was a lie but I'm sure that's what Harkin was doing. Especially since Pallin seemed to know exactly who I was talking about.

"You're young."

"Funny that you say that right as I see an average height blonde hair human who barely looks older then me walking into the detectives section_._" Emphasizing the last bit just to annoy him further. "Don't you see how that kind of undermines your argument?" I finished as the door shut behind the young human in the distance.

By now Pallin looked liked steam was about to come out of his ears. He was silent for a good ten seconds, looking for a bullshit excuse.

"Let me put it this way." I said, interrupting his thoughts. "You've hired morons when the council wasn't on your ass and you know that, though most of them don't last very long. So how about this? If I am the dumb teenager you're making me out to be, then you can take a few minutes out of your day and fire me. If I do my job well, then I stay here doing some good in the universe and you deal with less shit from the council."

There was a long awkward silence before Pallin finally stood up from his chair and held out his hand. I sat in shock for a second before I slowly got up and shook his hand.

"Welcome to C-Sec Mr. Raycevich. But know that I'm holding you to your word. You have no excuse for screwing up, if you do, you can kiss your ass goodbye."

"Thank you Sir and please call me Lucas from now on."

Pallin looked like he was about to object but then realized it wasn't a huge request. "Fine but before you go." he reached under his desk, pulling out a badge and putting it in front of me. "You'll need to go talk to one of the officers at the duty desk to get registered into the systems, they'll give you everything you need."

I took the badge and nodded to him before walking out the door. I was trying to not freak out and act normal but, _I just fucking joined C-Sec! _Granted I was only a beat cop but hey, still beat whatever else there was, no pun intended.

So I made my way to the corridor that had the duty desk, seeing two humans. One looking bored sitting behind his desk, probably the desk sergeant. The other one leaning against a wall looking at the doorway.

_Wait, is that?_

"Lucas Raycevich?" A familiar voice said.

"Yeah, that's me."

"I'm officer Bailey, Pallin told me you were coming."

_I knew I've seen that face, though calling him Officer Bailey is going to take a bit. I guess it makes sense though. He was a Captain in ME2 but that's four years from now. He's no Garrus Vakarian but it's still pretty bad ass I get to meet him during his earlier yea..._

"You all right kid?" He asked snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just still a little shocked."

"You weren't expecting the job?" He asked raising an eyebrow.

"Well, I wanted it. But I heard about Pallin not being fond of Humans so..."

"Ah don't worry about it, Pallin's like that with everybody. When he got the news from the Council that he was going to have to hire more species, he lost it. Shouting at everybody, throwing stuff around in his office, pushing any human he saw."

"Don't pissed off cops ever eat ice cream?"

"If only it were that simple." Bailey chuckled. "Now, we already got you into the system. Though your record doesn't say anything about weapon experience."

"I can only claim shooting an ancient double barrel when I was twelve. I can't claim to actually hitting anything though."

"Well lets hope you've improved, I'll give you a quick pistol lesson. We can't have people running around using them like they're in the vids."

"Alright, lead the way."

**Now Playing : The Heavy - How You Like Me Now**

* * *

><p><strong>P.S. If you enjoyed this story and also like Deus Ex : HR. Then you should check out <strong>Solace by QuillMind. It's very well written and takes place after the events of HR. You can either copy it in the search bar or find it in my favorites list. <strong>**


	4. Chapter 3 : Rise of The Young Guns

**A/N : First day of work at C-Sec. This chapter took longer to get out because A. This is the longest chapter yet and was a bit of a pain for me to write. B. I had to wait for it to get proof read. C. I just got Uncharted 3, if you have a PS3 and don't have it then you're insane. Thanks to my Mom for proof reading this again.**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 3<strong>

**March 15th, 2181**  
><strong>8:55 AM, Citadel Time<strong>  
><strong>C-Sec Academy<strong>

The session at the firing range went over quite well. I was no marksman, but I was able to adapt to the pistols quickly. Then again many people on my dad's side of the family were hunters. The M3-Predator was the default weapon for C-Sec agents, not the most powerful, but accurate, easy to control and could be fired as fast as your index finger allowed. I did find it pointlessly big, though I was sure I could find another weapon later. I didn't expect all the weapons to use thermal clips though. Odd that there was no overheat since this was before ME1 but, reloading was easy so it wasn't a huge deal. Bailey was also good at helping me out, I did almost call him Captain a few times, but he didn't seem to notice. I was informed that I would be starting the next day, and Bailey would be helping out again since he had been an officer for six months. From there I would just be a standard beat cop policing many Ward districts.

I had been a bit early, but that was my habit. When you live on an island and take a ferry every time you go into the city, you learn it's better to arrive early. The duty desk was empty so I was just sitting in one of the chairs to the side listening to some music while I waited for Bailey. I heard the door swoosh open to reveal Bailey in a standard uniform.

"You ready for your first day?"

"As much as I'll ever be," I said rising.

"You'll need this though," he said handing me a C-Sec logo. "You're not required to wear the uniforms, but if you don't you've got to put that on."

I just shrugged and put the logo on the front of my black sweater, it actually looked kind of cool.

"So, what now?"

Bailey gestured for me to follow and headed to the elevator.

"Now, we do some basic patrolling. You're lucky though."

"Uh, why?"

"Because we've had so many recruits recently, the Presidium is already full of officers. So you get to start off at the Wards."

_Oh yeah that's right, Garrus mentioned in ME1 that he started off on the Presidium._

"So basically, I'm lucky because I get to put myself in a more dangerous place," I said, as the elevator opened.

"It's better then starting off at the Presidium, I spent three months there before I got transferred and all you got was the occasional pick pocket. I would have been a detective by now if I didn't start up there."

_Actually, he does have a point. I took this job because it would allow me to help people rather then just sell them shit they don't need, but walking around the Presidium all day long isn't a huge step up. _

"The lower wards are pretty quiet most of the time," said Bailey. "probably because it's so close to the academy. You do get criminals in Zakera though, speaking of which, that's where we're headed to now."

_That's even better since I know Zakera decently enough from the game and when we first arrived. Though I can't tell him that. "_Let's get this show on the road then."

* * *

><p>The walk to Zakera from the lower Wards was much faster than last time since I knew where I was going. Not much happened so me and Bailey just small talked on the way there, he was actually a pretty cool guy. Some of the stuff he did in ME2 was questionable, but in the end he was just trying to do good. There was one odd sight I saw as we walked down the stairs however, I saw another C-Sec officer standing next to a Volus and Quarian arguing.<p>

_What the fuck is Lia'Vael doing here already?_ _Though, this does give me an idea._

"What are you doing?" Bailey asked as I walked to the group.

"Just going to see what this is about."

"An officers already there."

"There's something off about this though," I said, stopping a few feet away from them.

Bailey looked for a second before sighing. "If you want to intervene go ahead, I'm just here to watch and see how you do."

I nodded and moved in front of them.

"Sir, this is a C-Sec matter," he said in a annoying tone.

"You're right," I said pulling my badge out. "So what's going on here?" Looking at the Quarian.

"I was heading to the used ship dealer when he barged into me outside the Sirta foundation, he didn't stop or say he was sorry. A minute later he runs up with C-Sec and accuses me of stealing his damn chit!"

_I know how this all goes, but I have to play dumb._

"You often go to the used ship dealer?"

"Yeah. They've got a lot of nice models, I would like to buy one and take it back to the fleet but..."

"Your pilgrimage isn't going so well is it?" _Oh shit, I probably shouldn't have said that._

"No I, wait. You know about the pilgrimage?" she said looking at me as if I was a Bear.

_Shit, what's an excuse? Hmm, got it! _" I researched alien cultures before moving from Earth." _It's partially true, though probably not in the way you're thinking._

"I, wow. I didn't know anybody would actually do that for Quarians. Most just think we're beggars and thieves."

_Ah good, that was a bit of a close one. _"And I'm guessing that's where you come in." I said turning to the Volus on my right. I hated the bastard the second I saw him in game.

"She must have stolen my chit!" said the Volus. "She bumped right into me outside the Sirta Foundation store."

"How does bumping into you mean she stole something?" I asked crossing my arms.

"That's how pick pockets work. They bump into you and use that as a cover for rifling your pockets!"

I glanced at both of them before an idea popped up in my head. "Could you two please stand next to each other."

"What?" asked the Volus

"You heard me."

"I am not standing next to this clan-less thief!"

"You do that and I charge you, now get to it." I shot back, with him finally complying. I started chuckling a bit which got me odd looks from both of them.

"You say she stole your chit, yet her hands can't even reach them without kneeling down."

"What's your point?"

_Is he really that fucking stupid? _"My point is that it's impossible for her to have stolen your chit without being noticed."

"She must have stolen it!"

I sighed and looked at the officer behind the two of them. "Keep an eye on them."

"Sir, I've got this under control." he said stopping.

"You've done nothing but stand around and listen to them bicker, I'll handle this." I shot back before walking to Bailey, gesturing him to follow.

"Researched alien cultures huh?"

_Oh god damn it. _"Most aliens don't come to Earth, it seemed like a good idea." I wasn't sure if that was actually true, I was just hoping he would buy it.

Bailey shrugged, "Yeah, I guess."

I saw the store and the same Salarian clerk from the game, but in a much better looking outfit.

"Ah, got yourself a partner Bailey?"

"Just for today, showing a new kid the ropes. Lucas this is Marab, Marab this is Lucas."

I shook hands with the Salarian before speaking. "Nice to meet you, I'm guessing you two know each other."

"Bailey polices Zakera a lot, and he always comes to me for tech equipment. So, what can I do for you today?"

"There was a Volus here not too long ago, do you know if he left his Credit Chit?"

"Oh, yes, just give me a second." he said ducking behind the counter. "He bought some environmental drivers and left without his chit, I didn't notice until he was gone." He stood up again and handed me his chit. "What's this about?"

"He's accusing a Quarian of stealing it."

Marab sighed the moment he heard this. "When will people grow up?"

"Tell me about it, next thing you know we'll start seeing race riots like it's the 1960's."

"I honestly wouldn't be surprised," he said chuckling.

_Wait, he understood that? _

"Thanks for the help Marab," Bailey said, gesturing me to get that whole thing over with.

"Anytime officers."

"Seemed like a nice enough guy," I said as we exited.

"Marab's good, and he's the guy to talk to if you want anything tech related."

"I wasn't expecting him to get the race riots thing though, you notice that?"

"He's an Earth-born."

Wait what? "He's an Earth-born?" I echoed

"Yeah, kind of ironic you made that comment about aliens not going to Earth just before you met him."

"I was wondering where he learned to talk like that. Most Salarians I run into sound like they took some speed before going outside."

Bailey chuckled just before I was back facing the group again.

"Is this the chit you say she stole from you?" I said handing it to him annoyed.

"Oh. Well, the Quarian could have stolen it."

"I don't care if should could have stolen it, if I ever catch you falsely accusing someone again you'll be headed straight to a C-Sec post. Now get out of here."

The Volus didn't say anything and just walked away in defeat. He was out of hearing range before the C-Sec officer spoke.

"I'll close this report, but I'll be watching you. Get a permanent residence or I'll run you in for vagrancy."

_Oh not this bullshit. _"Are you kidding me?" I said walking right up to him.

"What?"

"She just got harassed and falsely accused and you threaten to throw her in for vagrancy?"

"How about I report you for obstruction of justice?"

"After I just solved this investigation for you, get fucking real."

He just walked away clearly pissed off. _But really, the guy was almost as dumb as the Volus. Charge me with obstruction of justice because I proved the Quarian was innocent?_

I finally calmed down since both of the idiots were gone and noticed that Lia seemed to cheer up.

"Thank you, I, I wish I could give you more then words."

"Don't mention it, those two were being morons. Can you take care of yourself from here?"

"Yeah, most nights I'm eating nutrient paste in a Turian shelter, but I'm surviving."

"Take care." I said turning to leave.

"Hey,"

I halted in my turning.

"What's your name?"

"Uh, Lucas Raycevich."

"Lia'Vael nar Ulnay, I'll make it up to you some how."

"Please, you don't have to. But I do appreciate the offer, good luck."

"Thanks." she finished as I turned away to meet up with Bailey who was leaning against the wall.

"Arresting is good, but freeing an innocent is better. I'll make sure to report that other officer, he's gotten into trouble before."

"Good, the dumb ass deserves it."

"You ready to get moving?"

"Yeah, I've already had enough of this block."

* * *

><p><strong>2 Hours 45 Minutes Later<strong>

"So how's the Citadel been treating you so far?" asked Bailey as we walked through a busy street.

"It's been alright, still getting to get used to the environment. I didn't live in the city back on Earth."

"Country side?"

"Island. Though it was very much like a typical small town."

"So you stayed there your whole life?"

"No, my Mom and Dad broke up when I was about 4 or 5. So I lived with her and my step-dad on the island, and met up with my Dad every other weekend in the city."

"So you weren't completely isolated."

"Right. What about you?"

"I was raised in New York City so I'm pretty familiar with these kinds of surroundings."

Bailey came to a stop and gestured me to do the same.

"What?" I asked

"You see the guy outside that bar? Brown shirt with white sleeves."

My eyes scanned the bar he was talking about and saw one guy standing by himself with a datapad. "Yeah, I see him." _Wait, is that?_

"His name's Mouse."

_Knew it. _

"Petty criminal, former duct rat."

"So why are we hiding from him right now?"

"Some investigators have been looking for him all morning. A bunch of weapon mods got stolen recently and they think Mouse might have met the person behind it. He's been caught fencing stolen goods in the past so it doesn't sound that far fetched."

"So, what do we do?"

"We bring him to the academy."

"You think he's going to run?"

"If he's one of the smarter duct rats like some say he is, he won't. If he does I'll just write him down as one of the lucky ones." I followed Bailey as we started moving towards the bar.

"You Mouse?" I asked as we were right beside him, his eyes still glued to his datapad.

"Who's asking?"

"Citadel Security." He immediately looked at us scared shitless._  
><em>  
>"W-what? What do you want from me?"<p>

"Our detective friends just have some questions for you."

Right as I said this Mouse took the datapad he was holding and threw it at my face and ran like hell from us.

"Fuck!" I hissed from the pain, but quickly went away when I started chasing him.

"I'll get a cruiser to tail him!" Bailey called out.

Mouse was dodging through crowds with me hot on his trail.

He made his way down some stairs that led to a much straighter bloke with less people.

Not great, for him.

* * *

><p><strong>Mouse's POV<strong>

_I need to lose him he's catching up. Head down the stairs it's got to be more twisty then this._

Mouse made his way down the stairs with the officer not far behind only to be disappointed.

_FUCK! _

Still in panic he ran as fast as his physic allowed, but it wasn't fast enough with the officer gaining.

Desperate he ran to a store on his right with a glass door, reaching it he pulled and pulled, but the door wouldn't open.

_What the fuck it can't be closed!. _He looked to his right to see the officer closing in.

_No no no no no no no no_

Mouse looked forward to see a Volus appear from the counter calling to him.

"It's a push door."

*SMACK*

* * *

><p><strong>Lucas' POV<strong>

I tackled the duct rat to the ground after he was defeated by the door. _He must have been one of the lucky ones._

"Please, I didn't do anything wrong!" He yelled as I cuffed him.

"Then why did you run from us smart guy?" Mouse just stayed silent after that, still breathing heavily. When I got the guy to his feet, I was greeted by a police cruiser with Bailey and another officer stepping out.

"Didn't get very far did he?" said Bailey.

"Nope, turns out the concept of a push door is too much for his mind to comprehend."

"Well, lets not waste any more time and get him to the Academy, it's almost lunch break anyways."

* * *

><p>Now we were in the elevator waiting to meet up with one of the detectives looking for this guy. Though Bailey was more looking forward to his lunch and I was more looking forward to getting some ice for my head pain. <em>That datapad fucking hurt! <em>The elevator finally stopped, with Mouse moving in front, we only had to move a few feet before I saw a Turian officer in front of us.

"Long time no see Mouse. Go ahead and move him to one of the interview rooms." He said to the other officer.

_Okay, how many more familiar faces am I going to meet today?_

"Detective Chellick. I really can't thank you enough for catching Mouse, we've been looking for him all morning."

_You think C-Sec would be able to catch someone as small fry as Mouse. _

"Officer Raycevich right?"

"Yeah, that's me."

"We heard about what happened with the Quarian at Zakera. Officer Tamert just got demoted to a desk job." He said with a smile crept onto his face.

"I'm guessing you're as glad as I am?"

"Yeah, the idiot has been giving us trouble ever since he joined. How he got transferred from the Presidium to the Wards, I have no idea. You stick with the pacing you're at now you could be in the investigation team in no time."

A bit shocked at first that he would even mention that on my first day, I just nodded and gave a typical response. "Uh, thank you sir."

Chellick nodded back and moved out of the way. "Well, I wont interrupt your break, good day."

With that Bailey and I headed to the Mess Hall to find some food and drink. Though it all went by in silence, after about two minutes I had enough. "What's wrong with you Bailey?"

He was silent for a few seconds and clearly thinking whether he should admit whatever it is or not, but he eventually looked away from his food and at me. "I've been here for six months, I fought for years in the Alliance before that, and I only got mentioning of being on the investigation team last month. Yet, you come here looking like you didn't even get out of high school and someone mentions it on your first day."

"Hey I wasn't expecting that comment either, if anything I wasn't expecting to be doing this at all in my life time. Being a cop was never meant to be something I would actually pursue."

"Then why are you even here?"

"Because I don't have choice." I sighed

Bailey looked at me for a few seconds and started to seem less pissed off, seeing that I wasn't making this shit up. "I'm sorry," he sighed "I just, I'm just being jealous."

"No no, I understand. I probably would have done the same thing." I finished up the soda and got out of my chair, though we had another 20 minutes. "I'm just going to walk around, I haven't gotten used to the place yet."

"Go right ahead, I'll meet you at the elevator after break."

"See ya." I stepped out of the room and made my way over to the main hall, though the people coming out of the elevator caught my attention.

"Lucas." Josh called out with everybody else next to him.

I made my way over. "I'm guessing you guys made your decision."

"Yeah, we didn't really feel like being store clerks either."

I nodded in agreement, but as I looked. I noticed only five of them. "Where's Terran?"

"He didn't come with us, said he would think about it later."

"His terminal and omni-tool seem to be his religion now, I rarely see him leave the place." said Phil.

"Any idea what he's doing?"

"No, but if he doesn't want to join C-Sec, that's his choice."

_I didn't think he would want to be a cop either, but I also wasn't expecting him to not even give it a chance. I'm also a little curious as to why he's using his terminal like crazy. Probably better to just put it off for now._

"Any advice for getting the job?" asked Shea.

"Just use logic and don't take shit from Pallin, but don't be an asshole. Knowing him he already would have crossed that line, have fun." I said before heading off to the armory, a little pistol practice wouldn't hurt. When walking though, I instinctively opened my omni-tool to find a fitting song. It didn't take too long.

**Now Playing : Cliff Lin – Rise of the Young Guns**

* * *

><p><strong>AN : Well, that was my first ever chase sequence (albeit a very short one). I hope the change in POV wasn't too confusing, I just felt that the sequence was better seeing it through the eyes of Mouse. As for the door, I think anybody that's read Masses to Masses would get it, and if you haven't do it NOW! Next chapter will jump a few months ahead and I'm already working on it. Hope you enjoyed and see you next time. PEACE.**


	5. Chapter 4 : I Just Want to Celebrate

**A/N: Here we go, almost a Detective. I'm already working on the next chapter as we speak and am trying to come up with more cases for later on. Special thanks again to my mother for proof reading. Not much else to say here so, enjoy.**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4<strong>

It was now two months after that first day. Bailey kept his word and left me to my own devices, but I still chatted with him many times on lunch breaks with me and my friends. Speaking of which, they all got hired at C-Sec and were also taught by Bailey. Though it was weird that Terran was still keeping quite, I was expecting it to be a couple weeks, not months. I figured I'd give him till the end of the month to get his act together. As for work, it was typical. We would have to sometimes chase someone down or report a scene to the detectives, but for the most part it was just policing the Wards. I also got to know Marab better since I spent most of my time in Zakera, and Bailey was right. Anything tech related, he was the guy to talk to. Everything was good, but some big changes were in order.

* * *

><p><strong>April 18th, 2181<strong>

**2:38 PM, Citadel Time**

**Zakera Ward**

It was another typical day at Zakera, except for the six gun shots going off. I immediately broke into a full sprint, pistol in hand just in case. It only took twenty seconds to get to the scene, but the gunman had gotten away by then. In front laid a dead human covering the floor in his blood.

"Citadel Security, everybody please step away from the body!" I holstered my gun and walked up to the body. Muttering some curses looking at it. We had reported this kind of thing before, but that didn't make it any easier to see. A few seconds later I heard some loud footsteps, which turned out to be Bailey and Paul. _I guess they were the nearest officers._

"You got here quick," Paul said stopping outside the scene.

"I was patrolling when I heard the shots, ran here as fast as I could."

"Well you're first reporting then. Paul maintain the perimeter," said Bailey, as Paul ordered the crowed out of the way.

"Is that because you're following proper protocol or do you just not want to investigate the disgusting corpse?"

"Both." He grinned

"You son of a bitch." I moved over to the body, knelt down and moved it onto its back, revealing six bullet holes with his entire chest and part of his face covered in blood.

"Jesus," Bailey said as he glanced at the body. "Whoever the killer was clearly had no mercy for the guy."

"Tell me about it." With getting nothing other then a bad feeling in my stomach, I took the guy's left arm and found he still had his Omni-tool. His name was Marcus Lake, though that didn't give me much to go on. His Omni-tool had all the typical apps like a Map, browser, music player and so on. His Inbox was the only thing that revealed. Though, it did reveal quite a lot.

"Hey Bailey," Waving him over.

"What?"

"I checked this guys Inbox and it's flooded with angry messages from this guy named Magna Carter. They range from little rants to full on death threats."

"So you think that guy could have killed him?"

"I don't have enough to back it up, but..." _Then again I haven't even checked out what these two people do. _By now I rested the guy's arm back on the ground and opened up my own Omni-tool, hitting the R&I logo. I got a couple of add-ons with my time at C-Sec, but didn't use them much since I was only a beat cop. I typed in the two names and got the usual info, date of births, jobs, height etc. Marcus was just some average Joe, and Magna was a Turian with a couple of charges due to his violent behavior. However, they both had worked with the Blue Suns. This made sense of the more obscure messages from Magna, they mainly tailored toward something that Marcus did that pissed him off or made him look bad to the higher-ups of the Suns.

"Hey, check this out." I stood up and walked over to Bailey, him examining the data. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I believe so. We don't have enough to arrest him, but we can bring him in for questioning."

"Hey guys," Paul called out. We walked over and found an Asari next to him. "We've got an eye witness, says she saw the whole thing."

"Go ahead ma'am," I said.

"I was in the cafe close by, I saw the man walking along with his Omni-tool open. I also saw this Turian, wearing an unmarked black suit of armor. He walked up behind him, shot him in the back and kept firing until he was on the ground."

"Did you get a look at the guy's face?"

"No, he was wearing a matching helmet."

"Thanks for you help."

She nodded and walked back to her spot in the crowd.

"I say we pay Magna a visit." said Bailey

"This just fits to well too be a coincidence." Nodding in agreement.

"You alright here?" Bailey asked Paul.

"Yeah, another cruiser is on the way."

"Let's go then."

* * *

><p>It wasn't too far to the man's apartment and we would have used an air-car otherwise. It was an old fashioned place with normal doors like back home, though they were taller for some of the aliens. Bailey and I walked up to his room and knocked on the door a few times. About ten seconds went by before the door opened to our Turian suspect.<p>

"Uh, what can I do for you?"

"Are you Magna Carter?" I asked

"Yeah, who's asking?"

"Citadel Security, we need you to come with us so we can..." The Turian slammed the door in our faces, Bailey kicked the door down and we saw the suspect running for the outside deck. "Son of a bitch!"

"Get after him Luc!" I was already chasing him, he lived on the first floor so there was no drop to worry about. By now we were running through the crowded streets, him pushing people out of the way and me not far behind. The fact he was a Turian was a problem though; they're naturally taller by their legs and as a result run faster. I may have been tall for a Human, but even I was having a hard time keeping up. Though he was making plenty of mistakes since he had no idea where he was going. We then came across a long stretch with less people, much like the mouse chase, except it was to my disadvantage. Right as he was starting to pull away though. Bailey came around the corner with a pistol pointed right at his head, which made the Turian immediately halt in response.

"Put your fucking hands up!" Bailey yelled. He complied and I cuffed him right after.

"Magna Carter, you're under arrest for the murder of Marcus Lake," I said as Bailey opens up his Omni-tool.

"I'll call for a pick up."

"Wait, we should meet the cruiser at his apartment, see what we can find."

Bailey thought it over for a second before he nodded. "If we find anything we can probably shut down this thing by the end of the day."

* * *

><p>Magna got taken to the academy while Bailey and I searched his place. Bailey checked the living room, though it would have been pretty weird to find the murder weapon there. I mean while was in the bed room looking around and going through all of his drawers.<p>

"You find anything yet?" Bailey called out.

"If I did you wouldn't be asking that." The drawers were empty and the floors were perfectly clean. Moving to his bed, I took the pillows and blankets off still finding nothing, though there was one weird bump in the mattress. Now that meant either a bad spring like a Looney Tunes cartoon, or the murder weapon.

This was a case of the latter. "Hey Bailey." He entered the room within a second.

"Well look what we have here." He smirked.

"Let's see him try and explain this."

"I don't think he'll have the chance to."

Bailey had taken the pistol while I spotted a closet in the corner of the room. The eye witness stated that the Turian was wearing all black armor and a matching helmet. I opened the closet to find a bunch of random clothes hanging with no armor to be found.

"It doesn't matter, we've got the murder weapon." Bailey said.

"If he kept the pistol, he would have kept the armor too." I responded, looking for anything. I pushed the clothes out of the way and spotted a big black case on the right. I took the case and plopped it on the bed, hearing the sound of two clicks when I opened it. Revealing an all black combat suit with a matching helmet. "It may not matter, but you've got to admit it's satisfying."

"That it is." Bailey chuckled.

* * *

><p><strong>1 Hour Later<strong>

Magna may have been working with the Blue Suns, but he was by no means a professional. Due to his mistakes we had the whole thing closed up before the detectives could even get to Mr. Lake's corpse. I just finished up some reports before going back out to the Wards. Though I was stopped at the main lobby.

"Officer Raycevich, you're requested at the interview section." some Turian at the front desk called out.

"Thanks," It took me a bit longer then normal to find the interview section since I had never been there. Why I was summoned there I had no idea, it was obviously not Pallin since he would have just called me to his office. When I found it, there was another human standing next to one of the rooms. _Hold on a second, that's the same guy I saw when I was in my meeting with Pallin. Funny enough, he actually looks pretty similar to me. Only real difference being that he's shorter._

"Lucas Raycevich?"

_And has a British accent. _"Yeah?"

"Detective Ian Shaw, I heard you and Bailey were the ones that caught this bastard." He gestured to the two mirror, Magna sitting in the room.

"Yeah, he would have gotten away to if Bailey wasn't there to help."

Ian nodded. "Well, I didn't ask you down here for small talk. You got hired because the Council wanted Pallin to get more non-Turians at C-Sec. However, what the Council really wants, is more non-Turian detectives. Pallin has hired other species for patrol and desk jobs before, but his investigators have always been Turian only up until recently."

"What do the other detectives think about that?"

"Majority of them actually welcome it, except for Pallin's supporters but, they're pretty few and far between. But that's the problem, I'm still the only non-Turian investigator and as result the Council is on his ass again. So we've been looking at candidates. You've only been with us for a short amount of time and have already got yourself quite the record. There's just one more thing you need to do." He finished looking at the two way mirror.

"You want me to conduct the interview?"

"Yes, this case is pretty much locked up, but It will be perfect if we can get him to talk, or in this instance, you get him to talk. You think you can do that?"

I starred at the killer in question for a few seconds before answering. "Yeah, I think I can."

"Good, now see to it."

I entered the room, lost in thought before I sat in front of Magna. _Great, I'm here for two months and I've become a futuristic Cole Phelps. Though that's actually kind cool, except for what he did at the end of ad vice, that wasn't so cool, Roy was still an asshole for making it worse though._

"You," he hissed.

"Yes, me."

"Fuck off, I want to see my lawyer."

"A lawyer can't help you Magna. You shot and killed a man in cold blood."

"That prick Marcus got what was coming to him, but it had nothing to do with me."

"You're full of shit Magna." I leaned back in my chair. He paused for a moment before leaning forward, venom in his voice.

"Say that to me again asshole."

I leaned forward myself, not intimidated by this two-time loser. "You, are, full, of, shit. We know all about the fights you two were having when working at the Suns."

"So you're saying I killed him because we got into a couple of arguments? Do you think that's going to stand up in court?"

"Here's where we stand Magna. You and Marcus hate each other, you have a history of violence, the murder weapon was in your house, the same armor and helmet that an eye witness saw was in your closet. Nobody can confirm your whereabouts today, and all you have to say for yourself is 'I didn't do it.' We have everything we need for a life sentence."

"Fuck you, and fuck that xenophobic dickhead Marc!"

"That's what this is about isn't it?" I shot back as Magna shifted in his chair. "Marcus hated Turians. You finally lost it and lashed out too far." Magna had nothing to go back on, shifting more in his chair with an angry expression on his face. _I could just walk out and charge him, but hey, it wouldn't hurt to try. _"Why did you do it Magna? You might as well come clean with us."

There was a pause for a few seconds before he slammed his fist on the table and started yelling. "He's been trying to ruin me for years! There wasn't a single day that went by where I could walk into work and just do my fucking job! That piece of shit blocked every chance I ever had at getting anywhere!"

_Marcus actually sounds like a real dick. I hated racists back home and I hate them just as much here, but at the end of the day. Murder is Murder. _"Magna Carter, I'm charging you with the first degree murder of Marcus Lake. I understand your frustration with xenophobes, I really do, but that doesn't mean what you did was right." I walked out of the room, Ian looking pleased with the confession.

"That look of defeat never gets old. You did good in there, getting them riled up usually does the trick. Now, it's just Officer Raycevich right?"

"Yeah," I nodded.

"Well, let me and Garrus have a word with Pallin. As for you, go ahead and take the rest of the day off and celebrate. You'll need it for tomorrow." He said leaving me alone in the interview section with Magna still angry behind me.

_So I got promoted to a detectives desk in just a few months with no degrees or training. You know what, I'm kind of liking the future. I guess I should take him up on the idea of celebrating, speaking of which..._

**Now Playing : Rare Earth - I Just Want To Celebrate**

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><p><strong>Disclaimer : Ian Shaw belongs to <strong>iNf3ctioNZ in Masses to Masses. Please review if you can, it really helps. The next chapter will be the first case, with Guns, Gangs and Murder. Dun Dun DUN. Hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading, PEACE.<strong>**


	6. Chapter 5 : Thoughts of A Dying Atheist

**A/N: Here we go, the first real case. I've been looking forward to these and had a lot of fun writing this first one. As for the Gangs there is three. 1. Invictus, 2. Zion and 3. The Drag Brothers. As for the names, they are not very original and I just got them out there in ten minutes. Anyways, hope you enjoy the chapter.**

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><p><strong>Chapter 5<strong>

**April 18th, 2181**

**10:30 PM, Citadel Time**

**Matriarch's Restaurant**

Maria was leaning back in her chair, laughing away at one of her brother's jokes with the rest of her family. It had been a long time since she had seen any of her relatives due to her work at GBC News, but it was what she wanted and her parents were happy for her. Maria was finishing her Asari wine when she saw one oddly dressed Human entering the place with a neutral look on his face. She put it at the back of here mind until she heard an odd cocking sound. Right as she did though, the ambient music and sounds of chatter were overtaken by bullet sprays and screaming. Everybody dropped down to the floor and covered their heads, glass shattering all around them. It only lasted ten seconds, but every second felt like a millennium. The Human ran out the door and dropped something on the floor. The screaming started to die down and Maria was feeling relieved. But she then looked at her hands and found them covered in dark red blood, looking down she found two bullet holes in her stomach. With the adrenaline seeping away, she could feel herself losing control and her eyes closing on their own, not even feeling her body making contact with the floor as her clock stopped ticking.

Her brother Daniel looked to his left to see the horrific sight of his sister lying on the ground motionless. He crawled over to her as fast as he could ignoring the pain from moving over the sharp glass. He moved his sister's body onto her back to find the bullet holes in her stomach, he tried to revive her, but got no response. He was surrounded by his friends and family, all as shocked and horrified as he was. Daniel shook her body still trying to get anything, but it was no use. He was starting to feel the tears dripping down his face that had started from the beginning. It was a moment unlike anything else in his life, in the absolute worse way.

"MARIA!" He screamed, losing all hope with everybody else he cared about.

* * *

><p><strong>April 19th, 2181<strong>

**8:50 AM, Citadel Time**

**C-Sec Academy**

It was a typical morning day on the Citadel, except for me heading for the Detectives Section at the Academy. A Turian waved me over before entering. He led the way and showed me around. It was one big room with a lot of tables, Detectives and extra entrances to the armory and Pallin's office. Though it was no joke that this was a Turian-only job not too long ago, the sight was a sea of fringes and three fingered hands. The Turian in front led me to two desks with one being completely bared with only a terminal sitting on it.

"Here's your new desk kid. I would only keep data-pads and other devices since you could be switching desks quite a bit. As long as you don't get too carried away decorating though, it should be fine. Here's your new partner, Harrad Chellick." The Detective moved his chair to face me.

_Never knew his first name was Harrad._

"What did I tell you huh?" Chellick said shaking my hand. "Welcome to your new home Detective."

"Thanks,"

"Well, I'll leave you two to it. Pallins meeting starts very soon though." The other Turian said walking to his own desk. Chellick was just finishing something up on his data-pad before getting up.

"Let's not waste any time shall we?"

I nodded and followed him to the meeting.

"Lucas," I heard a familiar voice called from my left.

"Bailey, I see Ian talked to you as well."

"Yeah, got the news at the end of my shift. About fucking time if you ask me."

"You know Chellick right?"

"Yeah, he was there when we caught Mouse." He said with him and Chellick shaking hands.

"Good to have you with us Bailey." Chellick said as Bailey followed us to the meeting room. There was about twenty other Detectives in seats, facing a holographic screen. The three of us took our seats and waited for the bitchy boss to show up. Within a minute Pallin was standing in front of all of us with a data-pad in hand.

"All right people, lets get this over with. At the Council's request, I've hired two more Detectives to this division and I'm sure it won't end here."

_If he dislikes Humans whatever, but he doesn't need to be so fucking obvious about it with that tone of voice?_

"So everybody, welcome Armando-Owen Bailey and Lucas Raycevich." There was a quick applause from everybody, much to Pallin's displeasure.

"Same thing as before Lucas, you do good in a case you'll get another one. You screw up and I'll throw you out myself."

"I'm sure that won't happen Sir."

"We'll see."

_Jesus Christ._

"Stick with Chellick; he's a good cop and he knows the Gangs here inside and out. Speaking of which, there was a murder in a restaurant last night, two people dead at the scene. We think it might be a possible assassination attempt by one of the Gangs. Head to Matriarch's in Tayseri Ward and see what you can find." Me and Chellick left and made our way to one of the C-Sec Cruisers with Chellick taking the wheel.

"So, tell me a bit about yourself Chellick."

"What are we friends now?"

"Hey, I'm just trying to make conversation, I don't feel like being completely deadpan with some one I'm working with."

"Hm, fair enough. I did my time in the military like so many Turians but, I got out of there as soon as I could. I preferred having a more stationary life, but I still wanted to help, so I joined here. Pretty much a Turian Bailey. What about you?"

"Long story and frankly one I don't really want to get into." _Cause I will probably get thrown into a prison for sounding fucking crazy. _"I was born in Western Canada on Earth, technically The United North American States but whatever. Just lived a quiet life in a small town most of my life, not really much happening but, it was nice." _Right up until some creep decided to ruin my birthday._

"So what made you move here?"

"Wasn't really much of a choice,"

"I see," He said in a quite tone, taking note my obvious displeasure in discussing this. I really needed to get to the scene; my mind was starting to go back to all of my memories of home, ones that comfort and ruined me at the same time.

* * *

><p>We stood outside the posh restaurant. Though the sight through the window was anything but, with two dead bodies on the ground surrounded by shattered glass and broken tables. Walking in the front door, I caught sight of two thermal clips laying on the ground. I opened up my Omni-tool to scan for any finger prints but, came up empty.<p>

"Whoever did this wanted these people dead in the extreme." I said as I observed all the bullet holes.

"This definitely looks like a gang act; we've had assassinations like this from them in the past. Bust in and shower them with bullets, no chance for survival." Chellick said observing the scene.

"I heard about drive-by's similar to this back on earth." I moved toward the bodies in question. Standing next to them was another Turian supporting a badge.

"Ah right, Lucas Raycevich, meet my good friend and forensics expert Izan Treyson," said Chellick.

Izan had White and Black face tattoos rather then the opposite with matching armor. Different, but pretty fucking cool.

"Good to meat you Izan," I shook his hand.

"Pleasure, one of the new recruits I presume?"

"Yeah, much to Pallin's disappointment."

"Just ignore him, he's always had a stick up his ass."

I nodded before gesturing to the bodies on the ground. "So what have we got?"

"Two humans, death by gun shot obviously, time of death about 10:30 last night. The bald guy is Captain Narom of the Blue Suns. He was sitting in the table in front of the woman that was killed. We think given the Blue Suns connection someone wanted him dead though we still have no idea who."

"Was Narom sitting with anyone?"

"No, the woman was with her family and friends. They all saw the whole thing and we got a statement from her brother."

_A Captain of the Blue Suns going out to an expensive restaurant by himself? Yeah, right. _"I'm betting he was waiting for someone. He probably set up a meeting here and instead got machine gun sandwich."'

"If he was meeting with some gang member, do you think he could have been the killer?"

"I doubt that," said Chellick. "The gangs around here rely on merc groups for equipment exchanges. The Suns would respond with extreme force if they found out one of the gangs killed a Captain of theirs. This is the work of someone else."

"What about the girl?" asked Izan.

I walked over to the corpse, opening her Omni-tool and looked through her records finding nothing in relation with the incident. Running it through my R&I app didn't give me anything either, she was perfectly clean, just a well educated girl rising up at GBC News. "She has nothing to do with this," I said shaking my head."Just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"I found out from the brother that she was on the ground after the killer left the place, meaning that he probably didn't even notice he shot her." said Izan.

There was a long silence before Chellick spoke up. "Anything else for us here?"

"Unfortunately no," said Izan. "Officers have already searched the place inside and out."

"Then I guess we better get going, see if we can pick up any leads." Chellick said, gesturing me to follow him.

"Thanks for the help Treyson." I said just before leaving.

"It was good meeting you Detective."

I headed over to the cruiser with Chellick. "So what do you think?" I asked.

"This definitely looks like a gang activity like I said, but it just doesn't add up. Gangs rely on mercs for supplies, so why would they kill one of the people behind that?"

"It couldn't have been one of the gangs trying to stop the other as well, if that was the case they would have killed the person meeting with the Captain."

"And gangs wouldn't do that unless they wanted to start a war with each other, which would only bring attention from the merc groups and the Police."

"So all that we've got right now, is that this was by someone who isn't a gang member, but did this like someone in a gang would."

"Hm, I think I might know someone who can help though." Chellick said getting into the cruiser.

"Who?" I said sitting in the passenger seat.

"You ever been to a gang holdout, Lucas?"

"No, mommy told me never to talk to strangers. Especially ones in bad parts of town with baseball bats and guns."

"Well your mom will be very disappointed in you."

* * *

><p><strong>15 Minutes later<strong>

So as much as I hated it, we were now in the Bachjert Ward outside one of the buildings that was a holdout for a gang called Zion. _So as a result I walk into a shit hole of a building getting frisked by guards with Matrix in my head, God Damn it._ I followed Chellick upstairs into a room with a human around his 40's sitting a chair straight out of the Godfather, with more fucking guards to frisk me.

"Enjoying yourself, pal?" I said before the man walked away with an annoyed look. _Alright that's Nathan Drake crossed off the list._

"No one ever died being too careful," said the man in the chair.

"Words to live by." _And James Bond, seriously I could almost make a game out of this._

"Indeed, so Chellick are you going to tell me who your new friend is."

"Lucas Raycevich, he just got promoted to Detective this morning."

"Congrats, so what why did you come here?"

"I'm sure you heard about Captain Noram of the Blue Suns getting murdered last night," Said Chellick.

"Yes, we're actually doing a bit of an investigation on that ourselves."

"Does this investigation include shooting at rival gangs?" I asked, not that he would tell me if they were.

"No, but it was the original plan if I'm honest. One of the Drag Brothers was going to meet with Captain, just like they had before. We were going to go "talk" to them once we heard about the murder, but it only took us a few seconds to figure out that it wouldn't make sense for them to kill him."

"Do you have any idea who would kill him?" said Chellick.

"We don't have the best relations with the Drag Brothers, but they told us and Invictus that there was a Daniel Ryan in their gang. Real crazy fuckhead; always screwed up their little ops and annoyed everybody, they kicked him out only two weeks ago."

"So you think it was him?" I asked.

"He's mentally unstable and got kicked out of the Drag Brothers for a reason, it definitely sounds like it."

"Then I guess that's who we're going after then," said Chellick.

"There's one problem with that."

"And what would that be?" I asked.

"The Drags have already issued a kill order on him, they also requested all of the others help in this."

"You've got to be fucking kidding me." I said, raising my voice slightly.

"Where?" asked Chellick, clearly as pissed off as I was.

"That information is going to cost you."

"I don't need to pay you anything. The deal is you don't cross the line and you get to stay away from bars." Chellick said, moving up to him. Which wasn't great since then all the guards pointed their guns at us.

"Whoa whoa whoa, everybody just calm down and put the loaded assault rifles away." I alarmed, though one of the guards spoke rather then the leader.

"Ryan killed one of the men that helps us I think that's a perfect reason to kill..."

"Enough! Stand down!" Yelled the leader, as the guards hesitantly lower their weapons.

"Thank you," I muttered.

"Think about it," Chellick said. "You can either tell us where he is and we go arrest him or you go out there and draw the attention of police and media everywhere."

The leader sat in the chair tapping his desk it was a good twenty seconds before he finally gave us something.

"Invictus is making an exchange at Deception. It's a bar they own on the other side of the Ward. The Drags think Ryan is going to try and stop the deal like he did at Matriarch's. The meeting is at 6:00pm."

"Thank you," Chellick said before leaving and gesturing me to follow.

We took our guns back and left the awful building before getting back into the cruiser.

"Well that was fun. In fucking terrible, sick not at all fun way." _And that's Vinnie Gognitti crossed off._

"At least we got something to go on, I've had worse in there."

"You've had worse then assholes point fucking guns at you?"

"If you keep up that attitude you can forget about being a detective around here. This job isn't easy and it's usually unpleasant. Now, let's go catch this son of a bitch."

* * *

><p><strong>5:30pm, Citadel Time<strong>

**Deception**

The meeting was at 6:00 but, the killer shot Narom before one of the Drag Brothers even showed up, so we weren't taking any chances. Chellick and I were sitting in a dark corner undercover. We contacted Pallin after the talk with Zion and got him to send over some back-up waiting to secure the place at our command. At the moment we had been here for about half an hour. Saying that Deception was not my kind of place was understating it, it was all flashing lights with drunk morons and horrible electronic music. Thankfully they accepted some songs I gave them after I got sick of listening to their crap that made Skrillex sound like a fucking masterpiece.

"You're right," Chellick started. "This is a lot better."

"I may not be racist, but from what I've heard so far, Asari music sucks. Then again it seems a lot of humans have forgotten how to make good music to." _Oh shit, when did I become my dad?_

"Isn't this Human music?"

"Yes, from hundred and seventy years ago."

"What?"

"Yeah, and this band that's playing wasn't even that well known." _Ra was pretty underrated back home. Thank you Tiger Woods 03 for introducing me to them._

"Spirits, Turian music is just war/military-like themes or battle tunes. There were a few who were able to expand from that but, the majority just stayed the same."

"I like that when I'm in the mood for it, but I never really tailored towards a specific genre. Mom would always say 'the only music I don't like is bad music.'"

"Alright!" Yelled the annoying DJ at the bar. "Who is still in love with the feeling of nostalgia?"

All of the drunks on the dance floor yelled what sounded to them like "I AM!" when to everybody else it was just gibberish.

"Well lets keep this rolling with Thoughts of A Dying Atheist by Muse!"

_Good choice. _Right as the song started I saw a Human walk with a black jacket, sunglasses and matching gloves. Like Adam Jensen, except much older and not a badass. "Chellick, look."

"I think that's our guy, matches the profile we got from the girl's brother." He put two fingers to his ear. "Bravo team we have the suspect in sight, be ready to take action."

"Copy that Detective, we're on our way." I heard through my headset.

"Okay, you ready?" He asked.

"Yeah."

"Let's go," We got out of the corner and walked up to the suspect, hands on our pistol holsters.

"C-Sec, you're under arrest!" Yelled Chellick. The suspect turned his head around, pulling his pistol out and firing a couple shots at us and ran off. Both of us leaping to the side of cover and thankfully didn't get hit.

_Thank god for Kinetic Barriers._

"Don't let him get away!" The suspect ran into the back halls, and fired some more shots at us when we got there, with me stopping just behind cover before running again when he stopped

"Run all you want Ryan we'll find you!" I yelled, running up some stair cases. _I really hope most detective work isn't like this on the Citadel, otherwise I should have just joined the fucking Alliance. _Ryan fired more shots as we ran, one of the them hitting me but my barriers recharged and blocked it. After a good twenty seconds we were at the top of the steps with Chellick kicking down the old fashioned door leading us to the roof top, the next building was way too far away to jump. Ryan quickly turned around at this realization to find the two of us pointing our guns. He still didn't stand down with his gun pointed at my head.

"Daniel Ryan, you're under arrest for the double murder you committed last night at Matriarch's!" I yelled, trying to get him to stand down.

"I stop gangs from getting their hands on new weapons, I did this place a fucking favor!"

"Your response to a gang that committed these crimes is to start committing them yourself?"

"Nobody knows what the fuck I've gone through!"

"You got picked on by a couple of assholes; even I can fucking relate to that!"

"So you've had your wife and daughter killed by a terrorist group?

_Well...I guess he's got me there._

"I've gone through things that would make an alliance commander shit himself!"

"So your answer is to put other people through the same thing?"

"Captain Noram was thief, murder and rapist! He is the fucking scum of this universe that ruined my life!

"So Maria Summers also deserved to be killed by a insane masochist?"

"Who the fuck is Maria Summers?"

"The woman you killed in front of her whole family while making your little deed with that piece of shit Noram!"

"What are you on about?"

"She was sitting right behind the Captain, just enjoying herself with her friends and family, only to be taken out by a fucking psychopath!"

After all the yelling Ryan put everything together. His hands were shaking more and he breathed a lot faster.

"Do you really think killing these people are going to bring your wife and daughter back?" I said calmly, still trying to get some sense into him. His hands and breath were shaking even faster.

"I, I loved her so much." He said Quietly. "We would always laugh when she got her name mixed up after singing Jack and Jill, playing in our back yard on prime, or when we would have to read her in bed. Then they, they, ruined everything."

His sayings were drowned out by my own train of thought. _Prime? I'm guessing Eden Prime. Killed by terrorist group, probably Cerberus. Little girl, Jack and Jill, wait...No._

"There is no god,"

_No._

He pointed the gun away from me and at his head.

"NO!"

*BANG*

His head splattered a burst of red on a floor and laid motionless on the ground after the shot kept ringing in my head. I lowered my weapon as did Chellick, he looked shocked but there was no possible way his head was as in shock as me.

"Bravo team, the suspect is down, I need medical assistance ASAP."

"Roger that Chellick."

* * *

><p><strong>One Hour Later<strong>

"As much as I would have liked to have the suspect alive," Pallin started. "He's still no longer going to be a problem. While I do disagree with your choice of informants Chellick, you and Lucas were still able to get the necessary intel to find Ryan, and Lucas."

"Yes?"

"You did good on this case with Chellick, you'll be staying."

I was really tempted to say 'told ya so' but I've never really been that kind of person. "Thank you Sir."

"Before you two go though, the Council still wants me to get more detectives. I have the entire list of officers here and I would like you to highlight ones that you think are ready. Chellick?"

"I don't really have any recommendations sir."

"Lucas?"

"Yeah," I grinned. "I might have a few."

After giving Pallin the list of officers who were all my friends completely by coincidence, I was on the large outside deck of the C-Sec building, admiring the amazing sight of the city as the artificial sun set.

"You think they will actually do good?" I heard Chellick ask before leaning on the same railing next to me.

"If I can so can they."

"Fair enough, I probably would have done the same thing."

"Don't you have any friends in C-Sec?"

"Most of my friends stayed with the military back on Palavan. Garrus is probably the closet I have to a friend."

"Do you keep in contact with your old military friends?"

"No not really," Chellick sighed. "Most of them didn't like my choice of leaving for a more stationary life on the Citadel. They were the kind that would watch old action vids all day long, picturing themselves doing the real thing and becoming a hero. I never wanted that, and as a result I'm still standing." He said with a hint regret in his voice.

"Damn,"

"What?"

"I, I just can't imagine that. Me and my friends were-are just a bunch of teens, most of us still trying to figure what we are even going to do."

"And now you're solving crimes and dodging bullets." He chuckled.

"I'll admit, it's not how I was planning to spend my days, but it's not all bad. At least I feel I'm doing some good, it's nice being able to after hearing about the dumb pigs on the news all the time."

"Pigs?"

"It's an animal, but it's also slang for police officers. Mostly used to talk about bad ones, 'pigs' that would abuse their power and give all the other cops a bad name."

"It does piss me off when I see someone like that flooding the news stations, though we take action to get rid of them."

"Then you guys do a much better job then us back home. I would watch footage of cops beating the shit out of someone while they're cuffed just to hear the pig got away with it, and it would happen time and time again."

There was a silence for a few seconds before Chellick changed topic, both of us still looking at the view of the city.

"Pallin is probably going to partner you up with one of your friends, so you can show them the ropes."

"You were a good partner Chellick," We shook hands.

"Glad I could be of service." He said, getting off the railing.

"Wait," I said. "Me and my friends hang out on Sundays since we live in the same tower block. Though we were going to start inviting some people from C-Sec, want to come over?"

Chellick stood there with from what I could tell a hint of surprise in his face, but after thinking it over I got a nod in a return. "Sure, I can be there. Where and what time?"

I opened my Omni-tool and copied the address. "There at 5pm, Bailey should turn up as well."

"Thanks Lucas."

"Don't mention it."

With that Chellick walked back into the C-Sec building with a more cheered up mood then before. I got back to staring at the sight of the space station. It was funny thinking just over two months ago I was looking at a piece of this place on the Unreal engine, which did not do this place justice in the slightest. Leaning away from the railing there was a guy that starred at me in building next to us. _What, did a Human detective really stand out that much? _He just walked away when I looked at him though, so I went back inside and got ready to head home.

**Now Playing : Muse - Thoughts of a Dying Atheist**

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><p><strong>AN: So a bunch of firsts in this chapter, hope I did them well and if I didn't oh well, either case let me know. Expect to see Izan more in the later chapters, he's basically going to be our "Mal" of this series (If you don't know who Mal is play L.A. Noire). As for the reveal about Daniel Ryan, I'm sure you can figure out that one yourselves, if you don't get it have a look at the Mass Effect Timeline. This probably our only case with Chellick as a partner, but like Bailey he will still make some appearances. Special thanks again to my Mom for proof reading this (even though she did not get any of the references mentioned in this chapter). Also if you liked this story, check out A Spectre's Legacy by JustHitTheMark, there's only five chapters for it right now but it's pretty damn cool. See you guys next time as always, PEACE.**

**P.S. Me and some internet buds rebooted a podcast we used to do, here's the link if you want to listen to it. /watch?v=y5OXkeuMyt0&feature=channel_video_title**

**P.P.S. I don't hate everything that's Japanese, I just hate all anime's.**


	7. Chapter 6 : Underdog

**A/N : Longest chapter yet, again. E-Sec is something I just came up with, basically the equivalent of C-Sec's SWAT. E-Sec is short for Elite Security. Hope you enjoy the chapter and thanks to my Mom for proof reading as always. I got the idea for this chapter after watching Die Hard 3 again, which I probably made a little obvious. **

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 6<strong>

**April 23rd, 2181**

**1:27 PM, Citadel Time**

**C-Sec Academy**

Thankfully the other cases weren't as...exciting as the one with Ryan. Which was good, because it still plagued my thoughts after each day of work. My friend's becoming Detectives was able to distract me and the cases were fairly small fry. That was going to change however, all of the Holo-screens erupted into news coverage about a building in Zakera exploding. I saw Shea walk up to my desk right after watching.

"Hey, Pallin wants us in the office, says it's urgent."

I gave the screen one last glance before moving to Pallin's office.

Pallin greeted us sitting in his chair like always.

"Detectives, as you know a building just blew up in Zakera Ward, some jewelry shop. Emergency forces and Izan are already there and they need some Detectives on the case, it doesn't look like an accident so I need you two to head down there and see what you can find. The address is on your Omni-tools."

"We're on it, Sir." We walked out of the office and went to one of the air-cars.

"So how are you liking Detective work so far?" I asked Shea.

"It's better being the person on the scene rather then the one reporting it, though it's been pretty small time so far."

"Trust me, once you get a bad case you'll be welcoming the small fry. Though I've got a bad feeling about this one."

"Thanks for jinxing us."

"You wanna know how I got a bad feeling about this?"

"How?"

"I was listening to this just before the building got blown up." I opened up my music library and booted up the song.

**Now Playing : Lovin' Spoonful - Summer In The City.**

Shea burst out laughing at my luck.

"Fuck my life." I muttered.

* * *

><p>It was about ten minutes till we got to the Jewelery store. All the dust and small fires had cleared, and was now filled with officers and Izan with another Turian. <em>Probably waiting for us.<em> We walked through where the glass doors used to be a met up with him.

"Izan,"

"Detectives, this is my good friend Johan Sol. Sol these are Detectives Shea and Lucas."

The Turian was actually pretty short for his species, he was still taller than me but by inches, not feet. He was in a custom outfit like Izan's, matching his face which was Black and Red. I always thought that would look pretty bad ass on a Turian.

"If there's anything having to do with fires or explosives, this is the guy to talk to."

"So what have we got?" I asked Johan.

"We've got people searching everywhere for what caused the explosion, but I can tell by how thorough this is that it's not crude explosives, and we might know how. The Systems Alliance was making some weapon exchanges with other Council races, specifically explosives. However they got robbed before they could make the deal."

"How many explosives are we talking about here?" asked Shea.

"It's in the triple digits."

…

There was a long silence from Shea and I.

"So, you mean to tell me that the people behind this are possibly the same people who stole over a hundred units of military grade explosives?"

"The Council told C-Sec to keep it's mouth shut about it, otherwise the whole station is going to go into a panic and we can't have that."

"How recent was this robbery?"

"Three days ago and they were good too. They shut down all surveillance and all of the guards turned up dead. Who ever we're dealing with knows what they're doing."

"Sir I think I got something, and it's definitely not jewelery," said an Officer walking towards us. He handed it over to Johan, it was a small chunk of some kind and Sol opened up his Omni-tool to scan it. We stood waiting to see if it was something useful.

"This is a good find officer, back to your duties," said Sol.

The officer nodded and got back to the others to search, I was guessing regular officers didn't know about the big robbery.

"This only confirms my suspicions. It's a small piece of a Mark 14 Grenade. Due to how this entire building is history though, I would say there was definitely multiples of these. It's definitely the same people behind the robbery."

"But why blow up a jewelery store? If they wanted money they would have robbed it," I said.

"Don't ask me, I'm no psychiatrist," said Sol. "All we know is that these guys are up to no good, whatever their motive is."

"And the surveillance was destroyed so we have no Idea what they look like?" asked Shea.

"Yes, they didn't leave any prints either. Merc groups and Gangs aren't that professional so you can rule them out. It doesn't make any sense why they would steal military grade explosives then use them to blow up a jewelery store." said Izan.

"Uh, detectives," said the one of the officers. "You might want to take a look at this."

We followed him out the building and saw a big crowed outside, near one of the public holo-screens that normally play the news. The screen was flickering until it was showing a full view of Zakera Ward. It was playing some kind of build up music as well, but the view stayed the same. _Okay, I've watched enough movies to know this is won't be good. _The music kept building and building until it was silent for ten seconds. I could hear a pin drop due to everybody holding their breaths. After the long silence, the video showed the whole Ward being turned into a blazing fireball scorching everything in its path. The crowed erupted into a sea of gasps and shock as everybody was opened their Omni-tools.

"So much for no panic."

The video slowly faded black and started to roll some text on the screen.

**Humanity will take over the Council in 01.00.00. or else...**

* * *

><p><strong>00.30.27.<strong>

C-Sec Academy, Pallin's Office

"Stop pacing!"

Shea's comment took a few seconds to register before I halted and gave him a glance. "I can't help it when someone is about to blow up thousands of people in an explosion that makes Chernobyl look like a fucking picnic."

"Are you sure these guys can't be bought?" Pallin asked.

"If they could they would have asked for money, and they didn't leave us any way to give it to them regardless." I said taking a seat. Pallin opened his mouth to say something, but the door opened to show a One and Only walk in.

"Yes Garrus?" Pallin asked.

_Figures that I get to meet Garrus Fucking Vakarian when a Ward is about to blow up._

"We might have a break, someone intercepted a video call and sent it to us."

"From who?"

"No idea, the sender had no information on him. But take a look at this." Garrus sent all of us the file and opened the video call recording. It showed two humans, both of them with scars that could only have been from warfare.

"_Everything in place?"_

"_Yep, video is prepped, explosives are planted and we've got the timer set." _

"_Good, and C-Sec hasn't gotten anything on us?"_

"_Nope, the store was wiped clean, they won't get anything from there."_

"_Alright, let the video play it's course. They've don't have long to decide."_

_*Disconnected* _

"Cheeky Bastards," I muttered.

"Facial recognition identifies these two as James Miller and Adrian Black. They both served in the Alliance and are also big Terra Firma Activists."

"What's Terra Firma?" Shea asked.

"Group of pathetic fuck wits who can't get over what happened in the First contact war, so they want Humanity to stand alone," I responded.

"It's not just that sir," said Garrus. "The person who sent this also traced Adrian Black's location, from a Slum in Kithoi Ward."

"Then why the hell aren't we at Kithoi?" I said rising from my chair.

"Alright," said Pallin. "You two head over there right now. Garrus, grab Ian and go with them."

We walked out of the office, Garrus typed something into his Omni-tool to Ian who was standing outside the cruiser when we got there. Garrus took the wheel and we headed off to Kithoi. _I'm about to find one of the perpetrators behind the attack on Zakera and yet all I can think about is working with Garrus, how am I not surprised?_

* * *

><p><strong>00.25.43.<strong>

"Alright, this is the place," said Garrus, parking the car and all of us getting out. Slum was a pretty good way to describe the place, though it was about a thousand times cleaner then slums back in my time. Our Omni-tools lit up with an arrow pointing to where Adrian was.

"Why would he be here of all places?" Ian asked.

"Cause it would be the last place we'd look." I said.

We walked through the crowded slums, though one thing was creeping me out. When we got closer I noticed some people looking down at us from the higher buildings, always only looking at us. _No no no, it's nothing. Probably just me overreacting from playing too many games. _I kept saying that in my head but, the feeling remained.

"Uh guys, do you get the feeling we're being watched?" I said quietly.

"Glad it's not just me." said Shea.

"Watch your back, Adrian might have a couple friends here," said Garrus.

We continued, though I could feel my body tensing up. Something was going to happen. We walked slowly just outsides Adrian's place, looking for anything unusual. _You know, I'm not sure what I prefer. On the one hand them not trying to kill me yet is good. On the other it's going to happen and my head is starting to hurt from tensing up about..._

...Suddenly there was a cord around my neck chocking me. Everybody else happened to be in the same situation as me. Shea had moved back and slammed the guy into the wall but it only pissed the guy off since he pulled even harder. _Why couldn't my death just be something quick, like a gun shot? M_y eyes drifted towards Garrus, who had stomped on the guy's foot stunning him and flipped him over his back to cuff him. Running on instincts rather then brains, I copied the same move and much to my surprise, the asshole was soon lying on the ground. Since he was much bigger I pulled my pistol out to let him know not to try anything funny. Technically I wasn't supposed to do that, but by then I just didn't give a shit. Ian and Shea had cuffed their attackers to.

"The DA is just going to love you," I said, getting up.

"Come on, we don't have much time." Ian said, quickly walking towards the door. We followed and found a whole ton of equipment and one of the windows open. I ran to the window and looked down to see the suspect only feet away from it.

"There he is!" I yelled vaulting over the ledge and chased after him, I heard the other three follow suit with loud foot steps and I saw Adrian leap down to one of the streets lower then his place and running.

"You guys follow him, we'll follow up here!" Ian yelled.

"Got it!" I dropped down to the lower street, a loud thump behind me indicating that Shea was following as we chased Adrian through the busy streets. _Couldn't I have a suspect not run for once? _Chasing the guy was a lot more chaotic this time with all of the people around. He couldn't run as quickly due to it, but that worked both ways. I was gaining a little since he had to push the crowed out of the way where as we just followed his path. I quickly glanced up and saw the other two keeping up easily since they had no crowed to deal with. He made a sudden right turn causing me to slam into the wall from running to fast, but I just shrugged it off. We were in some kind of market with him pushing over people and stands everywhere. He took some fruit and threw it at me but missed wide and went back to running. When we got to the exit the street widened, we were just a bit closer before Adrian pulled the closest civilian he could find, turned around, put her in front of us and put his gun to her head. _For fuck sake! _We both drew our guns and pointed them at his head.

"Make a move and she dies!"

The victim was a female Quarian in a grey suit with a turquoise visor. _It just had to be Lia didn't it? _"Drop the gun and put your hands on your head."

"Do you really think you're in the position to negotiate? You have no chance, in twenty minutes Zakera becomes a fireball and I walk away without a scratch..."

He was interrupted, permanently, by Garrus' pistol shot to the head from the roof. His body fell and hit the ground, with Lia still a little freaked out and all of us lowering our weapons.

"Are you okay Lia?"

"Yes, I"m fine. Thank you."

Shea took a look at the bullet wound right on Adrian's head.

"Damn Garrus," he said.

I turned on my Omni-tool and opened up a com-link to C-Sec. "This is Detective Raycevich, badge 2394. Suspect Adrian Black is dead and I need a cruiser on my location ASAP."

"_10-4."_

"Alright, cruiser is on the way now to retrieve the body."

"Good, we need to get back to his place anyway." Ian said.

"Is there anyway I can help officers?"

We all glared at Lia.

"Unless you know where they planted their explosives, I don't think so."

"I'm a Quarian, maybe I can help with any of their tech."

"Miss, this is a C-Sec matter and we're working on it right now. All I'd advise is for you to head back home." Garrus said politely, but basically saying "fuck off".

We broke into a sprint headed to Adrian's place, weirdly Ian gave another glance at Lia. _What? Had he never seen a Quarian before? They're not that rare on the Citadel. _My clock dipped down to around 18 minutes left when we got to the house, this time taking in the vast amount of wires and electronics in the house. _All I need to find is a secret door with a liquid that turns me into an alien hybrid and I really would have seen everything...and now I'm thinking about District 9 when a bomb is about to go off, STAY FOCUSED! _Ian sat in front of what looked like Adrian's main terminal and opened up his Omni-tool to hack the thing. Strangely enough, it didn't go through. He again, only to get the same response.

"What the fuck?" Ian said, trying to hack it a third time. "It can't get to his files."

"Here, let me try," Said Garrus, opening his Omni-tool, only to get as far as Ian did.

"Damn it." I muttered, Garrus gave me a glance.

"Hey, don't look at me. You guys probably know more about hacking now than I ever will." I said.

"Well isn't this just great." said Shea.

"I asked if their was a way I can help."

We turned around and saw Lia walking through the door towards the computer.

"Lia we've been over this," I started, she ignored me and opened up her Omni-tool. "Unless you've got someway of magically locating a bomb in Zakera, there's not much you can..." Right then the terminal lit up like a Christmas tree. "...do." I didn't need to see her face in order to know she had the biggest smirk on her face.

"Listen," I sighed. "If you are going to tag along, you need to stay close. If you get shot, I'm the one that takes the fall."

"Wouldn't I take a fall if I got shot?"

"Don't be a smart ass." I glanced back at the terminal and got back to the task at hand. "What have we got on this thing?"

"Pandora's box by the looks of it," Ian said. "This thing has got all the Intel we need. Chat logs, emails"

"The important stuff Ian." Garrus groaned.

"Right, sorry. It says here that...oh boy."

"What?"

"Look at this, it's a map of all of the explosives placed around Zakera."

I looked closely assuming the red marks were the explosives. There were twenty of the damn things spread throughout the entire Ward. One weird thing though, was an orange symbol in the middle of the map. "What's that?"

"According to this, it's the device that triggers all of them. If someone found a bomb in one of the areas there would be no possible way to defuse them.

"You think that's where James Miller is?"

"He wants to send a message, though he'd still want to survive. However, I wouldn't be surprised If he had people watching it the place to make sure the bombs goes off."

"Okay, copy those files and send them to us and Pallin. I need to make a call." I reopened the com-link on my Omni-tool. "Detective Raycevich, badge 2394. I need to speak to Executor Pallin and tell him it's urgent."

"One moment please." _Oh for God's sake._

…

_COME ON!_

"Lucas."

"Pallin, we've got the location of all of the bombs and their trigger. Did you get the files?"

"Yes, I've got them."

"Okay, we're going to head over to the center of Zakera where that trigger is and I want as many E-Secs, detectives and officers on that scene as possible. We've only got about fifteen minutes to stop this thing so we need to do this fast."

"Already ahead of you, I've got E-Sec units on their way and some of the other detectives are moving out as we speak. You should rendezvous with Bailey once you all get there."

"Thanks, we're on our way. You got all the data?" I asked Ian.

"Yes, like you said we need to get moving."

I nodded, but gave Lia one last look. "You sure you want to come with us?"

"Pilgrimage is about being able to sacrifice for the greater good, I have no problem with helping stop these people."

"Your choice, let's go."

* * *

><p><strong>00.11.44.<strong>

We got to the scene quickly due to Garrus driving the cruiser like a bat out of hell. We arrived to a sea of blue and black uniforms, except for the E-Secs they were just black. Moving through the crowds of people we saw Bailey talking with a bunch of E-Secs, with my friends being right next to him.

"Bailey, douches," I said, giving my friends a sharp glance.

"Asshole." They said in unison.

"Lucas, glad you got here quick, we don't have much time," Said Bailey.

"So what's the plan?" asked Shea.

"Chellick is tagging along with E-sec going through the front. We did a sweep of the building and it's crawling with people carrying M8-Avengers. So I don't think diplomacy is going to work."

"Shocking," I said. "Are you sure charging in the front is the best option?"

"It's all we've got right now, as far as we know..." He was interrupted by his Omni-tool beeping and flashing. He answered a call, but talked quietly enough for none of us to hear. A few seconds later and he closed the call. "Well I take that back, there is another way. We got another anonymous tip."

"Another one?" Ian echoed.

"Yeah, it's a full detail scan of the building. However, it also has the original plans that reveals a hidden back entrance for workers."

"It's probably the same person who gave us Adrian's location."

"Then we can trust him," Garrus said. "We should have E-Sec and some of the other detectives hit the front entrance. Meanwhile we'll have a small team take the back way and flank around."

"All right. Lucas, you and your friends will head through the back entrance. Garrus and I have combat experience to, so us and Ian will go with you."

"I'm going too." Said Lia.

"No you are not." I turned around to face her. "Hacking Adrian's computer was great, but we're going into a combat zone right now. We don't need you to head out just to get killed."

"That back entrance is old and probably locked up, if you run into any doors you're going to need me to get you through quickly. Plus you need somebody who can stop that bomb."

_I'm starting to really miss arguments with my mom now, at least with those she always lost. _"Fine." I sighed. "But you better stay behind us."

"Works for me."

"Okay, let's get to it. We've got less then ten minutes to stop this thing, move!"

We all burst into a full sprint, running for the back entrance now marked on our Omni-tools. Half way there I heard gunshots going off at the front entrance. _How could some cops become such fat pigs if this is what they have to go through? _We got to the entrance, but much to my displeasure, it was locked shut only proving Lia's point.

"Told you so."

_You little! _"Just couldn't resist could you?"

"You hear this Paul? Lucas is being told off by a girl," Phil said in a mocking tone.

"I know, life is full of surprises."

"What I love about it is..."

"Hey guys," I interrupted.

"What?"

"Shut, the, fuck, up."

"Yep, he's totally being told. He's just too much of an-oh hey door's open."

_Good, means I don't have to kill them. _

I didn't feel the need to nag the others about how there's no restart screens, because we already learned that months ago. I gave a look at Bailey. "You and Garrus have the experience, you take point."

"Are you saying that because it's proper protocol or do you just not want to get shot at?"

"Both," I grinned.

"Oh, you son of a bitch."

I never thought I'd be chuckling while multiple bombs were about to blow up the whole of Zakera in less then ten minutes, but like Paul said, life's full of surprises. We moved with our pistols in hand, but pointed at the ground to avoid accidentally kill two C-Sec bad asses. It looked like none of Miller's men knew about this place since it was as empty as these killers souls. The only indication there was anything going on was the sound of gun fire. We found another door leading to the interior of the building. Within ten seconds it was out of the way and we were right behind a couple of the assholes running the place and shooting at our fellow officers. We didn't waste anytime and mowed them all down, Bailey and Garrus getting most of the kills. Though in the real world I didn't think any of us cared about kill stealing, at least I hoped. When our victims hit the floor we saw plenty of other E-Secs emerging along with Chellick.

"Not a bad way to make an entrance," He said running towards us with the E-Secs following..

"I thought so." I said. "How much farther?"

"The trigger is held up on the 10th floor. If we stay at the pace we're going we can be up there in four." We ran up the stair well. Some of Miller's men tried to take us down, but those E-Secs were fucking good. Miller may have been an ambitious well-trained psycho, but his followers were amateurs. Though just before we went through the hallway on the 10th floor, the door got showered in bullets and we all ducked for cover. The E-Sec troops covered for us with their heavier fire power and took some of them down, but like the first floor they just kept coming. I looked down the sight of my pistol waiting for one little bastard to stick his head out. _Oh, I know how this goes. _Remembering my old video game curse, I drifted the pistol just a little to the left. The guy popped his head out, though I quickly aimed back to my old location, getting the shot dead on his forehead. I took cover again, satisfied but also pissed off.

"I can't fucking believe it," I thought out loud.

"What?" Josh asked.

"My curse of enemies never coming out until I look away exists even in reality."

"You should get a sniper rifle. See if you're just as bullshit with a real one," Paul said.

_You know, I actually might just try that. Though If I am just as bullshit with a real one I don't think criminals would ever get into a firefight with C-Sec again. _The gun fire died down and most of the troops along with Chellick, Bailey and Garrus moved up.

"Move forward!"

The rest of us broke into a full sprint and all halted at the door. Lia worked her magic again and within no time the door's hologram went from red to green.

"Alright everyone, breach in 3, 2, 1!" Said Chellick.

There were ten people turning towards us with M8's, though we had almost double that. I took down the man to my left in three hits before he could get a shot off. Everybody else had done the same except for one of the E-Secs getting hit, though they were wearing combat armor so it didn't matter. Turning to my right I found Bjorn knocking a gun out of someone's hands, grabbing their arm and twisting it. Bjorn had some freaky gift of being able to turn hands around in 360 degrees. I always thought it would be lethal as all hell if he used it to his fullest and indeed it was since the guy he grabbed was screaming in pain along with a loud cracking sound.

"Rooms clear!"

"Uh, guys." Phil said from one of the side rooms.

We rushed in the room to find one big ass case with a holo keypad and a screen with a simple counter covering the screen, with 00.02.38. on the clock.

"Okay, I'm freaking out," Josh said painfully slow.

"Lia, do what you do best," I said as she entered the room and sat down next to the device.

She began typing on the holo keypad with her hands almost becoming blurry from the speed. Everybody just stood tensely as she was working. There was no chance for escape since the whole Ward would be turned into rubble if the bomb were to go off. The bomb ticked kept ticking with the beeping from the clock and Lia's typing being the only sounds. The clocked dropped down to **00.01.48.**

"Stupid bosh'tet," She muttered.

_Okay, that is not filling me with confidence. You know in terms of way to go, being blown up in a massive fireball is actually not a bad way. _

"Come on Lia." Shea gritted his teeth.

**00.01.08.**

_Though I always thought, that if you knew a big explosion was going to happen and you had no chance of escape. You should probably shoot yourself about .1 of a second before it goes off. Cause I think that the pain from the explosion, while brief is probably extremely painful. Though if you shot yourself in the head just before it went off you probably wouldn't even feel a thing. _

**00.00.49.**

_However the timing would need to be precise, because it's possible that someone could stop it at one second like they always do in the movies._

**00.00.40.**

_In fact I really hope it doesn't come to that._

**00.00.40.**

_Because that would actually be really, really stupid._

**00.00.40.**

_Oh, hey the clock isn't ticking anymore._

I heard every single person breath out in relief. I melted into the wall, relived that I wouldn't have to shoot myself in the head at. I opened my Omni-tool and hit the com-link for hopefully the last time today.

"This is Detective Raycevich, badge 2394. I need to talk to Executor Pallin."

"One moment please."

_Take all the time you want buddy._

* * *

><p><strong>10 Minutes Later<strong>

"Well, there's good news and bad news," Pallin started. "The bad news is the media is going to love this. The good news, is that the media is going to love this."

_Pallin being nice for once? Huh, I guess it is possible. All you need is to stop some douche bag blowing up a Ward on the Citadel. _

"Hope you don't mind cameras, because they're going to be following us for the next while. James Miller is still out there, but I think it's safe to say he's lost his big chance."

"Uh Sir," I said. "We wouldn't have gotten anywhere in this case, if it wasn't for Lia'Vael or the anonymous tip."

Pallin gave me a stare for a good second, but was followed by a nod. "I'll make sure to let them know Detective. Now, take the day off." With that Pallin walked over to his cruiser and headed back to the Academy.

"So, we'll meet up at your place?" Paul asked next to me.

"Yeah, I'll meet you there."

Paul headed back to his cruiser with Phil and Bjorn. I noticed Garrus and Ian not too far and figured it would be one of my few opportunities to just talk to Vakarian.

"Glad to have your help Garrus, Ian."

"Happy to help, you did good too." Garrus said. "So you and friends are hanging out later?"

"Yeah, later today." They gave a me stare. "You guys want to come to?"

"Sure, why not?" Said Garrus. "I need a break from him at my place anyways," Gesturing to Ian.

"Thanks for throwing me out of the bus asshole."

"What? I don't like you buying that stupid cheese that stinks up the place."

"You're the one that floods the fridge that that Tupari shit. I keep telling you it does nothing."

"I need it."

"Like I need a bullet hole in my chest."

"Okay, I'll just let you two settle your marriage issues." I laughed walking by them.

"Fuck you!" They both said at the same time with a harsh glance.

"Aww, he's even learned Human curses. That's cute, you two were made for each other."

I received two middle fingers in return, or just one finger up in Garrus' case. Walking past them Chellick stood by.

"You still coming Chellick?" I asked.

"Yeah, uh. Is it okay if I also bring Johan and Izan?"

"Sure, no problem. Though you might want to bring some Dextro-Amino foods since I don't have any at my house."

"I can just bring some. See you there."

I nodded and walked a little farther. Bailey waved at me before getting into his cruiser. When the cruiser left I saw Lia sitting on a bench by herself. _You know, for someone that just saved Zakera, she's pretty damn quiet. _Feeling that I should do something, I walked over and sat down the the bench.

"You holding up alright?" I asked.

"Yeah," she nodded. "It's just, I. It's weird walking in a slum one second and defusing a bomb the other."

Understanding what she was going through and feeling that she deserved something for her actions. I took out a credit chit and put the credit count to 10,000. I handed it to her and she seem to not even know that she was supposed to take it.

"What, I, Why?" She stuttered.

"If you weren't there this whole district would have been reduced to rubble and thousands of people turned to dust. Wether or not you want to admit it, everybody here owes you. Giving you this is the least I can do, you don't owe me anything."

She took the Chit and stared at it for about thirty seconds before moving her head to face me.

"I, thank you."

I nodded and got up from the bench. "Hey, me and some friends were going to get together later today. You want to come over to? It would be a change from the slums in Kithoi."

She stopped looking down again and stared at me for ten seconds. Thankfully though, she seemed to calm back down and gave a nod.

"Sure, I'd like that."

"Alright, see you there." I smiled, deciding to walk back to my house. I felt like it, which was a rare occurrence.

* * *

><p><strong>10:17 PM, Citadel Time<strong>

**Lucas' Apartment**

It was always fun having friends over, but it was really nice to actually have some new people over. Ian unfortunately had to leave early for "Stuff". Though Garrus was pretty quick to reveal that he had a girl friend and that's what he probably meant by "Stuff". Which was too bad because it was just fun to listen to him and Garrus bicker. We played some games, Chellick and Bailey shared some old war stories and Izan and Johan talked about the most fucked up things they've seen in their time at C-Sec. Highlights included death by a drunk Krogan landing on someone and never getting up, cowboy riding a keeper and thieves drinking a bunch of stolen wine with out realizing it was Turian. Lia seemed to be having a lot of fun, which didn't come as much of a surprise since she spent most of her nights in that horrid slum. By around 10, it was starting to die down and most people headed home. I walked out Chellick and Lia who were the last ones to leave. We had all decided to make it a weekly thing. I took one glance at the hallway in the apartment, looking at the door across from mine. Terran's apartment, still closed with the hologram red. _You know what, screw waiting till the end of the month, this just needs to stop now._

"Hey Lia," I called just before she got into the elevator, I waved and she walked over.

"What is it?"

"My friends lives in this apartment. He came with us to the Citadel but, he's been extremely quiet these past two months. I want to find out what's going on."

"You want me to hack his door open?" Lia asked surprised.

"Yes."

Lia responded by opening her Omni-tool. Within five seconds the door's hologram switched to green.

"Thank you."

She gave a nod and walked back to the elevator. I was about to enter, but I walked over to Shea's door and knocked.

"What's up?" He asked.

"I got Lia to hack Terran's door open and I was going to talk to him, I figured that you'd want to come."

"Sure, I want to know what's going on to."

Shea and I knew Terran the best out of everybody here since we used to go to the same school. We walked through the door and found the place looking like the rest of our apartments, though it was lacking in features. He checked a bunch of the rooms, all of them being empty. Except when I stumbled upon a small corner room. Both of us walked through and saw one big holo-screen and the man in question typing like a mad man. He was so caught up that he didn't even notice the door open when we walked in.

"Terran," We said in unison.

Startled he whipped his head around, a shocked look on his face. He quickly got out of his chair and turned to face us in some clothes that looked like that hadn't been washed for days.

"What, what are you guys doing here?"

"We're asking the same question."

"I, I'm just doing some work."

"You haven't talked to any of us and have been stuck here this whole time. You're not 'just doing some work'."

Terran stood for a while before sighing and taking a seat.

"Look, I'm sorry I ditched you guys. I just need to do something that didn't involve you."

"What else is there?" Shea asked.

"That's the point, there is nothing else. I had my family, my younger brother, and someone I really cared about back home. Here I don't have anything." He looked down at the ground with a face I didn't need to be a detective to know what it was. He was hurt, like the rest of us. I took a chair and sat next to him.

"Look, I know it hasn't been easy for any of us, myself included. But you're not alone on this, not unless you make sure of it."

"We can't change the past, as much as we'd like to sometimes." Shea said.

Terran lifted his head up with a sad but more genuine smile. That wasn't all that we came for though.

"Now, what were you working on?"

He moved his chair back to the terminal.

"You guys heard about bomb threat right?"

"Yeah, we were working on it actually." Shea said.

"Well, there was this robbery three days ago. Some people came over and stole over a hundred units of military grade explosives from the Alliance, but the Council obviously doesn't want this to get out so they tell everybody to keep their mouths shut. So since this was obviously connected I ran a search on the people that went there. Everybody would have had to get a I.D. Scan. Just before the robbery was committed I found a couple of I.D.'s that were fakes. So I used facial recognition and found the real people behind them. Once I did I hacked into one of their Omni-tools, very difficult I won't bore you with the tech. I was able to get a video chat recording and I sent it off to C-Sec, I also sent a scan of a building they were hitting with some plans."

_Uh_

"Did you send them using your profile?" Shea asked.

"No, I wasn't sure if the police would accept what I was doing so I left out any contact info just in case."

_Uh, the police includes me, and I think I would go beyond accepting. _

"Terran, I think I have a job for you that would work, perfectly."

**Now Playing : Kasabian - Underdog**

* * *

><p><strong>AN : All right, Terran was the anonymous tip, Johan Sol has been introduced, Garrus is still kicking ass and Lia'Vael defused a damn bomb. Kind of odd to think that this chapter started out being really short. I wanted to get this chapter out on Saturday but, I had some friends over and have been watching Castle (If you haven't seen that show, watch it. Funny, witty and great twists). I'm debating which of two cases will be the next one, but I'm leaning to one involving Air cars. PEACE.**


	8. Chapter 7 : Testify

**A/N: Okay, my streak of longest chapters yet has ended, but oh well. Originally this chapter was even shorter and in truth not that interesting, but the two ideas I got at the last minute made up for it I think. I don't know what the next case will be, but I will say that it's probably going to open up with a driving range. Also thank you for over 1,300 hits last month and to everybody that have actually bothered to keep track of this story. I hope you enjoy the chapter, PEACE.**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7<strong>

**April 27th, 2181**

**9:30 AM, Citadel Time**

**C-Sec Academy**

It was another boring morning at the Academy. Even though the days were technically longer on the Citadel, it still didn't stop me from saying that mornings really sucked. I leaned against a wall in the mess hall drinking Pepsi (Yes it was still around), when I noticed Josh sitting in one of the tables and staring. I scanned around until I saw what was causing him to. It was the young brunette from the medical team standing in the main hall. Josh got up to leave, however just before he got past the door I held out my hand with a datapad stopping him.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"What? I was just going to have a chat with that girl, is that illegal or something?"

"No, but there is one little problem."

"What?"

Without looking I pointed back to her and as I predicted she was standing next to Ian, chatting away and giving him a little kiss on the cheek before leaving. I grinned while Josh had a look between annoyed and disappointed.

"Lucky bastard," he said.

"Tell me about it. He gets to be the first Human Detective because he's got a stupid piece of paper with his name on it, gets Garrus Vakarian as his partner and then has her as his girl friend."

"So how did you know that?"

"Ran into her in a case, one of the officers got injured and she patched him up. We had a quick little chat and then I got back to work. Anyways, don't have time for that, new case." I handed Josh the datapad and he took a quick look. He nodded and picked up a police cruiser.

* * *

><p><strong>15 Minutes Later<strong>

**Tayseri Ward**

It wasn't a shooting, robbery or a crazy psycho threatening to blow up Zakera. It was an Air-car, or several tiny pieces on the ground next to a shell representing an Air-car. Inside was a dead body with his head on the dash covered in blood. As always Izan was on the scene and waiting for us.

"Lucas, Josh."

"Izan, what have we got?"

"Name's an Alex Goldberg."

"The same guy running in the election?"

"Yep, we got a call from a civilian. Says he heard a loud crash and saw the car, Officers got in on the scene and found the body. Looking at the head injuries and the loss of blood I would say he died on impact."

I looked at the body, "How was he going fast enough to die on impact?"

"Frankly I don't know, but with the fields that cars have these days, you have to be going three or four times over the limit to die on impact in a crash."

"But wouldn't anybody have called about that before he crashed?"

"I don't know, depends on how long he was driving."

"Do you have the number on the car?" Josh asked.

"No, but it should be on the front."

We walked to the front and saw the number, 011567. I opened up the Omni-tool and called Terran. After learning that he was the anonymous tip from last weeks case, I told Pallin about it. At first he didn't like it, but my friends and I convinced him that having a hacker on our side would give us a huge advantage. I also stopped using R&I when Terran got hired since he was faster and had more details.

"What's up?" Terran asked.

"I need you to give me some data on a vehicle; the number is 011567."

"All right, belongs to Alex Goldberg; the tracker says he was at a bar in Tayseri around 10:50PM last night. He was flying around for about five minutes before he crashed into one of the buildings and that's his last location."

"Any information of how fast he was going?"

"He was feeling a little under the weather so he was using the auto-pilot, fastest the thing ever went was sixty MPH."

_What the fuck? _"All right," I sighed. "Thanks for your help." I walked back over to Josh and Izan. "We've got a problem."

"What?" Josh asked.

"Terran said that he was using the auto-pilot because the guy was too drunk to take the wheel. There's no logical way he could have died on impact."

"Well I don't know how else he could have been killed," Said Izan. "He doesn't have any stab or bullet wounds, no signs of anything odd entering his blood stream; all he's got is the head injury."

_Then how? The safety fields would have stopped his head hitting the dash...unless. _"Where do cars usually keep there gravity fields?"

"Behind their mass effect cores, why?" Izan said.

I opened up the back of the car and found the small mass effect core like normal and there was a slot for the gravity field. I pulled it out and found that it wasn't active and hitting the power button did nothing. "Izan," I waved him over. "Run some prints on that, it's busted."

Izan opened up his Omni-tool and after a few seconds was done. _Thank God for future technologies. _

"Yeah, it's busted alright, no chance of getting it working again. The prints belong to a Ricky Scott, and he works at a company who makes the same model as Alex's vehicle," Izan said with a smile.

"That might be our guy, but it doesn't explain how it crashed in the first place," Josh said.

_Actually, he does have a point. _"How many auto-pilot errors have you seen Izan?" His face told the answer.

"In all my years I've never heard of an Auto-pilot error in a crash. Companies weren't allowed to use auto-pilot until they perfected it, which was only a few years ago."

_I wonder. _I opened up my Omni-tool and called Terran again.

"What's up?"

"Hey, I need you to run a list of how many accidents are put down to Auto-pilot error."

"That's going to take longer then a simple phone call, Lucas."

"Then just call me when your finished."

"Done."

*Disconnected*

"So where does Ricky Scott work?" Josh asked Izan.

"Works at a Quattroporte Industries, they've got a shop not too far from here."

"Then let's go pay him a visit."

* * *

><p><strong>Quattroporte Industries, Tayseri Ward<strong>

**10:00AM, Citadel Time**

The shop wasn't all that different from car dealers back home. It was all shiny silver, people in suits wearing buckets of hair product and that smell of nothing real. _God do I fucking hate it._

"Hello and welcome to Quattroporte Industries, the most exotic and renewed maker in all of Citadel space."

_And there's the only thing I hate more then the dealership itself. Good thing I have a badge. _"Detective Lucas Raycevich, Citadel Security. This is my partner Josh Adams."

"We're looking for a Ricky Scott, is he here?" Josh asked.

"Ah, your looking for old Scotty? He's right in the repair section of place, top of the class I should mention." He said with that singular car salesman talk.

"Thanks," I said, quickly walking away from the annoying prick. "Funny that he says exotic."

"Why?" Josh asked.

"Cause Quattroporte actually just means Four Doors."

"I didn't know you learned another language,"

"I didn't, I just watched Top Gear."

We walked into the the repair section, too clean and artificial for my tastes and saw the man in question repairing a vehicle.

"Are you Ricky Scott?" I asked.

"Who's asking?"

"Detectives Adams and Raycevich, we'd like to ask you a couple questions," said Josh.

Scott turned his head around, concerned.

"What's this about?"

"You worked on Alex Goldberg's car not too long ago correct?"

"Yeah. His vehicle's core just needed a simple repair."

I let Josh do the talking and looked around Ricky's work place. I opened some drawers and found nothing interesting. All I were some Datapades connected to groups about making peace with other species. However, opening his small cabinet, I found a small Gravity core slider, the same make as Alex's.

"Hey Josh," I said handing him the slider. He came to the same conclusion.

"Ricky, you're going to have to come with us to the Academy."

* * *

><p><strong>C-Sec Academy, Interview Room 1<strong>

**10:20AM, Citadel Time**

We filled Pallin in standing outside the double window.

"So do you think it's him?" Pallin asked.

"We're not sure; he removed the Gravity core but he's got no criminal history and he certainly doesn't look like a killer to me." I said.

"I'm siding with Lucas on this one. The guy looks like a teddy bear, not a enraged psycho," Said Josh.

"Well, see what you can get out of him and make it quick." Pallin said before walking away. Right then Terran walked in.

"Got anything?" I asked.

"No reports of any vehicles crashing due to Auto-pilot error, and I ran all the dealerships in Citadel space."

"Damn it. Thanks for the help." He nodded and got back to his desk.

"So this guy planted the busted gravity core, but did nothing to actually cause the accident.," Josh said out loud.

"Something just doesn't add up. If he was the killer he would have known it was going to happen. But if he really wanted the guy dead, why go through all that trouble when he could have just shot him?"

"Let's ask him," Josh said opening the door. I took a seat in front while Josh leaned on the wall.

"Do you know why you are here Ricky?"

"Yes," he said reluctantly

"Did you have anything against Alex Goldberg?"

"No, none. He was just another customer to me."

_Oh please. _"Alex was a xenophobe Ricky, we found peace group ads in your desk. Don't lie to us."

"Okay, fine. I didn't like him putting us over everybody, what does that change?"

"It does give you motive, Mr. Scott."

"Motive? What, you think I killed him? All I did was fix his fucking car. How does that make me a killer?"

"You didn't just fix his car Ricky, we know you replaced his gravity core with a dud. You call that a common repair?"

He started looking around and sighed

"I, I want a deal."

"Give us something and we'll see what kind of deal you're worth," Josh said.

"I, if I tell you this, will you protect me?"

"Well," I said. "Your options are you tell us something, or I get lazy and tell the DA you did it. You've got motive and we can place you at the scene. How long do you think you'd last?" I was bluffing, but hey, he didn't need to know that.

"Fine. I got an email from someone. Said that Alex Goldberg needed his car repaired and was coming in to the factory to get it fixed. I was told that if I swapped out the gravity core and put a tracker on it he would give me 10,000 credits."

"And you didn't think to report this to C-Sec?" Josh asked.

"I'm a man working a ten-hour job and barely keep up with payments. What would you do?"

"Does this 'someone' have a name?" I asked.

"It was his partner, Hugo Bates."

"Do you have any proof?"

"Actually I do. I mark emails, but I never delete them. Old habit I guess."

He sent me the file and I opened up to check. It looked real enough, but I was going to have to get Terran to run it through.

"Thanks for the help Ricky. Just remember to get to the truth faster next time."

"You guys aren't going to let me go right? If they find out I told you, they're going to kill me."

"You can stay at the station until this is all sorted out, for now I would suggest making sure you didn't miss anything," I said before walking out the door.

"You think he's telling the truth?" Josh asked.

"He doesn't seem like a killer and the email looked real enough. Why would Alex's own partner want to kill him though?"

"Who knows? Maybe he was jealous," he said sarcastically.

"I wouldn't be jealous of a douche bag who gets paid to sit around and make peoples lives more miserable."

"Why am I not surprised to hear that?"

"What can I say? I fucking hate politics."

We made our way upstairs to Terran's desk. Who was typing away like a mad man as usual.

"What's up?"

"That's the third time you've said that today." I said.

"This is the third time you need my help."

"Point taken, I need you to figure out if this email is genuine or not. If it is, then we might have a new suspect."

I sent Terran the email and he proceeded to run some thingamajig on his terminal. Less then a minute later he looked back at us.

"Yep, the email is genuine. Who ever gave you this isn't messing about."

"Thanks."

"Hey Lucas," I heard Phil call out.

"You have a visitor."

"Who?"

"Chloe Goldberg."

* * *

><p>Turned out that Alex had a wife and she had received the bad news. She was very sad, crying and sobbing for the first minute or two, but she said that she had something that might help.<p>

"What is it?" I asked.

"I, we, were being blackmailed only two weeks ago." Chloe took out a datapad and handed it to me. I scrolled through the pictures while she continued.

"Every day I would get sent multiple photos and they would always have a threat attached. They got worse and worse to the point of sending us naked photos. Alex kept ignoring them though, said it was just someone trying to put fear in us. I contacted the police but when I did the pictures stopped coming. That was about a week ago."

She wasn't kidding about the pictures. I stopped myself before getting to the naked stuff though. I was a cop, not a porn crazed stalker.

"Did you know anyone that had a grudge against your husband?"

"When you're a politician you always have people who dislike you," _You can say that twice._

"But I think I know someone; his partner Hugo Bates. Every time they were at our house recently, the two of them would be yelling at each other, trying to intimidate one another. Eventually Hugo pushed him and I had to kick him out. If anybody would do something like this, it would be Hugo."

"Thank you Mrs. Goldberg, you've been a big help."

"Glad I could be Detective," Josh and I left.

"Sounds like this Hugo is our guy," Josh said.

"I don't know, it just seems too easy.

"We'll think about that later, Alex's wife says he was a bastard and he sent the message to Ricky. All the fingers point to him right now."

* * *

><p><strong>11:00AM, Citadel Time<strong>

**C-Sec Academy, Interview Room 2**

Eventually Officers found Hugo getting some early lunch. Thankfully he didn't run. _Unlike 90% of my prime suspects. _I got something to drink went to the interview section. I had my evidence in hand and Josh leaned against the wall just like with Ricky.

"Why don't you just save time and get this thing off your chest?"

"Get what off my chest? You bring me in just because I was Alex's partner and you think I'm some sort of killer?"

"Yes, that's basically the gist of it."

"Well, look somewhere else."

"Did you have any problems with Alex Goldberg?"

"We were partners for two years, almost like brothers. It's how we stayed in the business all these years."

"You're full of shit Hugo. Truth is you hated that douche bag, so you blackmailed him and his wife so you could get your way."

"What?"

"Then you followed him when he didn't budge, messed with his car so it had to be repaired, you hired somebody at the shop to replace his gravity core and attached a tracker, make him crash and _voila_ your problems are gone."

"What? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard! What proof do you have that I didn't like Alex?"

"We know all about the arguments you were having Hugo,"

"We got into a couple arguments, so what? That's par for the course when you're in this business."

"Having a politician's wife kick you out is not par for the course, Mr. Bates."

"And what was all that shit about hiring somebody at a car shop? Do you have any idea how fucking crazy that is?"

"Then explain how this was on Ricky Scott's datapad just a few days before Alex was killed," I said handing him the datapad.

Bates looked at the device disappointed, he remained silent.

"You're in one deep hole Mr. Bates. You've got motive. You hired someone to track his car. Alex's wife will testify against you. If you've got anything to say, now would be a great time to say it."

He sat head down. After thirty seconds, I got bored.

"Very well Hugo, have it your way."

I got up with Josh.

"It was Von Klerx," Hugo said. "Von Klerx was behind the killing."

Josh and I walked back to where we were before. "Von Klerx, Alex's main rival?" I asked.

"Yes."

"So, how do I know that you're not just making this shit up?"

"Alex was way ahead in support numbers compared to Von. He knew that he had no chance of winning the election."

"So he was going to lose the election. Why wouldn't he just wait for the next one instead of killing his main rival."

"This was the first election for a Ward with a human in the mix, as you know humans have been moving through the ranks rather quickly. Von saw this as a threat."

"And so did you," Josh said.

"I, yes. I had worked with Alex for years but, something about him changed in last couple weeks. He was making all these promises that sounded great, but there was no actual way he would be able to pull them off. He seemed to be doing it just to manipulate people. He seemed so pissed off all the time. He never used to be like that."

"So you helped Von with Alex's murder," I said.

"Yes."

"That's a really interesting story Hugo, but I'm going to need you to give me something more.

He looked annoyed, but then opened his Omni-tool and sent me a file. Slowly. I opened up the file and saw that it was the original file with the stalker photos of Alex and Chloe.

"Those pictures originate from a Chamelon Omni-tool. I've got a Bluewire. They were given to me by Von."

* * *

><p><strong>2:47PM, Citadel Time<strong>

**C-Sec Academy, Detectives Section**

"Did you get it?" I asked Terran.

"Yep, was quite tough to crack though. The thing uses encryptions like nothing I've seen, but I was able to get through. Guess whose name was on the creators tab."

"Gee, I have no idea,"

'Von Klerx. I also did some research on the guy. He uses a Chamelon Omni-tool and he also was top of his class in technology. Which shows the skill he would need to hack into Alex's car."

"So he could have done this if he wanted to."

"Exactly. Also, nobody is allowed to access a car's tracker except C-Sec and the Council. So that's why he got Ricky to put an unlicensed one on Alex's car."

"Alright, let's think this over. Von knows he's going to lose the race, however he see's Alex as a threat to himself and the people,"

"So he comes up with a plan to get rid of the threat," Josh said.

"First thing he does is blackmail the Goldbergs into doing what he wants."

"But Alex doesn't take the bait so Von had to take the extra step."

"Except he couldn't do this on his own, so he get's Hugo on board."

"Hugo damages the car, he offers the worker some dough in exchange for fitting the car with a dud gravity core and an unlicensed tracker."

"Von puts his tech skills to use, waits for the right moment to strike and boom! His and the people's threat is history."

"You really have watched too much Castle Lucas," Terran said.

"Hey, I would argue that there is no such thing."

"Yeah," Josh said. "You've also argued about video games, sodas and why everybody at Fox News should be machine-gunned."

"Which I still stand by,"

"Do you know where we can find this Von before he starts going again?" Josh asked Terran, glaring at me.

"Yes, he's at a campaign rally."

"When?"

"Right now."

* * *

><p><strong>15 Minutes Later<strong>

**Zakera Ward**

It was nice to have a prime suspect in a location he couldn't really run from for once, though Josh and I brought Phil and Paul with us just to make sure Von didn't try anything funny. The building was packed full of people, everybody was seated and was Von giving a speech. Which just so happened to be about Alex's death.

"So what are we going to do?" Phil asked.

"I'll go down the main aisle and get his attention, meanwhile you three go to both sides and surround him. Then he we won't have any way to escape."

"Alright, Paul and I will take the left,"

"And I'll take right, got it," Josh said.

Von stood on stage not noticing us and getting to his speech about Alex. About how he was a 'great man' and how he always wanted to do great things; all the usual bullshit. _You know what, I have always wanted to do something like this._

"Von Klerx," I called out interrupting his speech.

"Excuse me, I'm in the middle of a speech. Go take a seat or I'll have C-Sec drag you out."

"I am C-Sec so I don't think that will be happening," I said holding my badge and walking closer.

"Can we do this later?"

"I don't have much patience for criminals,"

"What, I, are you accusing me?"

"I'm charging you with Blackmail, Conspiracy and the murder of Alex Goldberg." I said raising my voice a little just to get gasps from the crowd.

"Excuse me," he said, walking away only to meet Paul and Phil pointing pistols at him, he tried to turn the other way but encountered Josh. I walked up to the stage and cuffed him. We walked him down the aisle; he kept bitching and bitching and bitching.

"You're putting an innocent man away!"

"Keep telling yourself that," Josh said.

"I knew I shouldn't have trusted that bitch!"

_Wait. _I took the guy and slammed him into the side of the car instead of putting him through the door. "What bitch, Von?"

"Ah, no one. Forget what I just said."

"Give me a name Von."

"Forget it, just forget it!"

I took his head and slammed it on the the hood of the car. "Now give me a fucking name!"

"Chloe Goldberg!" He yelled in pain.

_Wait what? The wife? Why would she...oh no. _I took Von away from our cruiser and handed him to one of the other C-Sec officers. "Get someone to pick him up and take him to the Academy." I opened up my Omni-tool and called Terran.

"So what do you need my help with, again?"

"This is not a good time right now Terran. I need you to find anything on where Chloe Goldberg might be."

"Why?"

"Cause she's our new prime suspect and we need to find her right now."

"Just one second. Okay, she just took off in an Air-car."

"Where?"

"Zakera Ward about two miles from your location. Looks like she's heading for the Transport station."

"That bitch is going to leave the Citadel and make an escape. Can you send her location to our Omni-tools?"

"Way ahead of you."

"Thanks."

*Disconnected*

"Alright everybody get in, Chloe Goldberg is making a run for the transport station. We need to get to her before then." I took the side seat with Phil and Josh taking the back. Paul was at the wheel, since he was the only one that bothered to get a license and he always liked flying. "Punch it!"

We were going as fast as inhumanly possible, blasting the sirens and zooming through the sky. Quickly we were right behind the suspect finding her in a lane of traffic above.

"Pull over to the ground level now," I said over the loud speaker. The car was slowing down but soon she stomped on the accelerator. "Keep up, she can't get to that station!"

"On it!" Paul said, accelerating. Chloe was out of the lanes of traffic and moved to the free airspace. We had no problem following since her car was no faster then our police cruiser. Realizing this she opted for moving the car lower to building height and started swerving between tower blocks. We took one steep angle after she made a full left turn around a building. Right after wards there was another building in construction with one small gap in the middle.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Josh said.

"Hold on!" Paul said.

We made our way through the gap with no scratches, which couldn't be said for Chloe since we went right through some sparks chasing her.

"Holy shit!" Paul laughed.

"You're enjoying this aren't you?" Phil yelled.

"Maybe,"

"I don't give a shit, just stay on her!" I said.

Terran had marked the transport station, which now was only five miles away. At the speed we were going that wasn't going to take too long. We were still swerving around buildings and climbing up to go over roof tops only to go back down again. _Thank god for gravity cores, otherwise the G's probably would have ripped us to shreds at this point. We need to make her slow down! And P.I.T.'s don't work here. What about..._

"The mass effect cores in cars have an outside radius right?" I asked Paul.

"Yeah, so that you don't die from losing air when a window gets opened. What's that got to do with anything?"

"Just keep the car steady!" I said, pulling out my pistol and opening the window. _It's like L.A. Noire all over again, except in the sky! _I aimed as well as I could and fired the first five shots, with only two actually hitting. The next bunch all connected, but Chloe kept going. I took the pistol back and put in a new mag to have another go. Just before I aimed we took another big angle chance to the right, almost throwing me out the fucking car. _Again, thank God for gravity cores! _

"You call that steady?" Josh yelled after the turn.

"It was either that or crash into the fucking building!"

"Phil give me some help shooting her down," I called out.

"What can't hit shit so you need my help?"

"Fuck you! These pistols aren't exactly known for their stopping power!"

I took aim again, more shots connecting and getting the extra fire power from Phil in the back. We took another leap up over a roof top, still shooting. Right as we got over the rooftop we heard a big explosion, the back Chloe's car started catching fire in the back. As we descended she no longer had any real control, just falling to the ground faster and faster. It's a good job it was just short of the transport station where there weren't many people. We got a few hundred feet from the ground when we saw her car dive straight into the ground rolling over several times before finally coming to a stop. Paul brought the cruiser to a stop right next to the crash and we all piled out to the sight of the blazing car and Chloe on her feet slowly walking away.

"Reekris!"

"Shut up Phil," I said walking over to the suspect who fell to her knees as soon as she set sight on us. I walked over and brought her to her feet to cuff her.

"So she was behind it with Von?" Paul said.

"Yep."

"What a bitch."

* * *

><p><strong>4:00PM, Citadel Time<strong>

**C-Sec Academy, Pallin's Office**

"So Von and Chloe were working together," Pallin said. "Von wanting to take Alex out for the election and Chloe's relationship with Alex wasn't going as well as she claimed. They're both being tried for murder along with many other charges. Hugo's sentence has been brought down a lot but he's still going to be locked up for a long time. Ricky will also be doing some time to. Both of you did great. Not many Detectives can claim to four arrests in one day. You were also right about getting Terran on the job. Even the best of the best are having a hard time staying out of sight from him. You're dismissed."

Josh and I nodded and we walked out of the office. "Funny to think that if they didn't bother with the Blackmail and just went straight to the murder, Chloe and Von probably would have gotten away with it."

"And Hugo would have been locked up as the tool Von was using him as. So what would you allow if you were in charge?"

"Fully recreate the second world war on Khalisah Al-Jilani's face."

**Now Playing : Rage Against the Machine - Testify**

* * *

><p><strong>AN: The car chase at the end was something I thought up at the last minute, but in truth I always wanted to have at least one in this series and I thought that it fit well here. Hope you enjoyed. So, I'll be back to watching more Castle now, PEACE. P.S. I gave myself a deadline for this chapter, so I apologise if there are any mistakes.**


	9. Chapter 8 : Lullaby for a Dead Man

**A/N: Okay, this chapter is _very _different from what I originally intended. Special thanks to my Mom for proof reading like always. Hope you enjoy. Sorry for any spelling errors.**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 8<strong>

It was over a month since I'd busted Chloe, Von, Hugo and Ricky, and things were going pretty well. Marab expanded his store, selling customized weapons as well as tech. Since I hated how big the M-3 was, I gave him a datapad and within a few hours had a good old James Bond P99, because sometimes I have the mental capacity of a six year old. We still hang out at my house on Sundays, which were always fun. Ian started bringing his girlfriend Rebecca over so he didn't have to keep leaving early. She was quite the character, but in a good way. We always argued about music since she was into all the stuff they play at Flux and Chora's Den, but I didn't care, it always lead to funny conversations anyways. She wasn't a xenophobe, so she and Lia got along quickly. Speaking of Lia, I noticed her and Terran talking a lot now since he started coming over. He'd probably claim that she was just a friend but I've seen that look on his face before.

* * *

><p><strong>June 3rd, 2181<strong>

**8:20PM, Citadel Time**

**Tayseri Ward, Richie's Driving Range**

My friends and I were going to meet up after work, but after I told Phil and Shea how doctors here could fix eye sight problems within minutes it was Me, Bjorn, Paul, Josh and Terran. Turns out all the problems back home like cancer had been cured, so things like my typical teen acne were child's play. My friends and I met up at the local driving range mainly because I hadn't played any form of Golf in almost six months. Thanks to future technologies, finding a few clubs that fit was easy and I was still hitting alright.

"Fuck!"

As for everybody else, not so much. Not that any of us actually gave a damn.

"So Terran, you ever going to find out what's behind that mask?" Josh teased.

"I told you we're just friends,"

"Riiiiiiiight," I said.

"What evidence do you even have to go on Detective?"

"Eyes and history, I've seen that look on your face back in 6th grade Terran."

"Plus you never take your eyes off her," Paul chipped in.

"I do."

"Please, you look at her like a horny sailor in a whore house," I said.

"Or a Chester outside a middle school," Josh laughed.

"Chester?" Bjorn asked.

"He means molester," I said.

"Why do you guys know multiple ways of saying _molester?_" Terran asked.

"Because, as you know I am a living, breathing human Wikipedia of useless information."

I lined up another shot on the mat, but the others seem to stop while I was getting setup. I set the club face down, and took my swing.

"What the fuck?" Bjorn said as I hit the ball.

I looked out to saw an armed Human chasing an Asari running away.

_Oh balls,_

"C-Sec, stop right there!" I yelled. He ignored my statement and held up his pistol. Lining up the shot, finger reaching for the trigger and then...

SMACK!

_Wait what? _I saw the Human falling to the ground, knocked out cold. Right next to him, a golf ball. _You've got to be kidding me._

Everybody busted out laughing except me, mostly because I was still in shock of what happened. We ran to the body as the Asari stopped and moved towards us. I ran up to the body and checked the mans pulse. It was fine.

"Nice shot," Paul said, chuckling.

"Put's new meaning into 'Say hello to my little friend'."

* * *

><p><strong>June 4th, 2181<strong>

**10:00AM, Citadel Time**

**C-Sec Academy**

I made the call to C-Sec and Paul took us back to the Academy and agreed that we'd pick this up tomorrow. Shea and Phil had also gotten the same doctors treatment as me as well as their eyesight fixed. I walked over to my desk, but Bjorn called out and waved at me from Pallin's office. I entered the room, saw the executor. Both of us stood in front of his desk.

"Lucas, Bjorn. We took a look at the man suspected for attempted murder who you stopped in your...unique ways. However, he wouldn't say a word."

"What?" Bjorn asked.

"This is the footage from last night. We had Bailey try to talk to him." Pallin handed over a datapad. I hit play and saw the suspect in one of the interrogation rooms with Bailey asking questions. The perp just sat there shaking, suddenly the suspect leaped over the table and tried to grab Bailey growling like a Vorcha. Bailey took the perp's face and slammed it into the table along with another punching not the man cold, again.

"What, the fuck?" I said.

"That was everybody's reaction," said Pallin. "The man's name is Reginald Gage, thirty two years old, married with his wife Emily, has no criminal record, got a secure well-paying job, nothing to suggest there's anything wrong with his marriage."

"What about the Asari he was chasing. Does she have anything to do with it?" Bjorn asked.

"Nope. We talked to her and she was just walking along minding her own business when Gage pulled out his gun and started chasing. We checked with her family, she has no relation to him what so ever."

"Where is he now?" I asked.

"Izan has him for testing to try and figure out what's wrong with him. Good luck you two."

"Thank you Sir." I walked past Terran's desk on the way to Izan.

"Hey, I need you to find as much information about Reginald Gage as you can. What kind of jobs he had, who knew him, etc."

"I'll see what I can get," he replied, I nodded and went to Izan's lab, the first time I had seen his work area, a lot smaller due then labs back home to forensic experts able to get most of their information a lot faster.

"Detectives,"

"Izan," _Insert Shepard, Wrex line here. _"You figure out what's wrong with this guy?"

"Well, aside from the hit on the head from your target practice, there's nothing. Except for this." He exposed the man's left arm revealing a small round mark. _I've been to doctors and watched enough things about heroin to recognize needle marks._

"It's the only mark on him, and from what I can gather he received it at about 8:00PM last night."

"Twenty minutes before we saw him,"

"Exactly. Something had entered his blood stream, but here's the strange thing. When I did the test and ran the database, It came up with nothing."

"Nothing?" I echoed. Izan nodded. "How is that even possible?"

"That's the million credit question. What ever entered his system is brand new and royally fucked him up."

"So somebody gave him this, and we have absolutely no clue as to who?" _It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack made of needles, I mean-wait that doesn't even make sense._

"I don't know what person did this, but I can be fairly certain as to what kind of person did this."

"What kind?"

* * *

><p><strong>10 Minutes Later<strong>

"We've got a complete list of all the doctors and scientists here. It's better then starting from scratch," Bjorn said, placating me. It wasn't working.

"Oh yeah. We can just bring in every single fucking Doctor/Scientist by tomorrow, no worries. Let's all go home and masturbate, cause this will just be sooo fucking easy to take care of. And how are you still listening to me rant?"

"I don't know,"

Bjorn always was a quiet kind of guy. I had known him for almost eight years and yet in many ways, I still didn't know shit about him. "There's got to be something to go on." I looked at my terminal and narrowed the list to Doctors/Scientists with criminal records. The list went down to 267 people.

"But what if the guy doesn't have a criminal record?" Bjorn asked.

"Do you really think somebody who created a liquid that takes over all self-control in a person has no rap sheet?"

"Point taken, there's still too many though."

"Hey," Terran said standing in front of my desk. "I did some digging on your lunatic. His boss and co-workers confirm he was at work till his shift ended. Said that after that he would be on his way home to his wife. No signs of any grudges at work or problems with their marriage like we already heard. Everybody says he was as happy as a man could get. I looked at his past five years,"

"Dig further, I still think who ever did this knew Gage personally."

"On it," Terran returned to his desk on the other side while I sat thinking. _It couldn't have just been random. If who ever did this wanted someone for experiments, he would have gotten somebody from the slavers or taken someone defenseless, not a 30 year old married man._

"What about his wife?" Bjorn said.

"What about her?"

"His workers accounted for his whereabouts during work, but not after."

_That's right, we haven't accounted for what happened between 4 and 8 PM. _I called the main desk.

"Detective Lucas Raycevich, Badge 2394."

"How can I help Detective,"

_Thank God her voice isn't as annoying as L.A. Noire's. _"I need someone to bring in Emily Gage to the Academy. I need to ask her some questions about her husbands whereabouts last night."

"I'll send over our nearest Officer."

* * *

><p><strong>15 Minutes Later<strong>

**C-Sec Academy, Interview Room #2**

"What, what is wrong with him?" Mrs. Gage said in horror, looking at her husband outside the glass.

"We can't say for sure, but we think he got a liquid injected into his blood stream that has been taking over his self-control." I said.

She didn't say anything and kept staring at her husband turned mindless zombie.

"Mrs. Gage, I'm not going to pretend to know what you're going through. But I need you to tell me everything that happened last night."

Sniffling she turning around to answer.

"Every time he finishes work he comes back home and we go out or make something to eat, normal things. But recently he had been coming back later. He said that it was overtime but, my friend Jenny who works at the same place said she never heard of such a thing. I was about to confront him about it yesterday. Tell him that if he's for what ever reason seeing someone else, that he should just have the guts to tell me. But he never arrived last night. Then I heard about what happened at the range." She cried.

"Do you know if anybody held any grudges against your husband?" I asked.

"No, Reginald was friends with everybody at work. He was the kind of person that hold a conversation with anybody. That's how I met him in the first place, so no, I don't know anyone who hated my husband. Certainly not enough do this to him."

"Did you two have any issues with your marriage; money trouble, fights?"

"No, God no, not at all." She responded way too quickly.

"Emily, if you want us to find the person who did this, then you need to tell us everything."

"Okay, we were still in love, but we were having some money trouble. We both blew a bunch of our budget on this product we invested in, but we still had our jobs and knew we would come back in the long run. My husband was a little upset but, I told him we would be fine."

"Alright, Emily don't take this personally, but I need to know where you were between 4 and 8 PM last night."

"I was at home, but I did do some shopping around 6. The clerk at my apartment would have seen me walk by and if she didn't then the security cams would have."

"Thank you for your time Mrs. Gage. You're free to go."

She nodded and took one last look at her husband before reluctantly leaving. Bjorn and I walked back the the Detectives' section. Bjorn typed something into his terminal and watched some security cam footage. Two minutes later and he spun his chair.

"Her alibi checks out. Security footage shows her leaving her place at 5:57 PM, came back at 6:20 and never leaves the house again after that."

"I'm not surprised. There was no way she could have been the person behind a poison that turns people into zombies."

I looked to see Terran in front of my desk, again. "Please tell me you got something." I sighed.

"Wasn't having any luck until I looked at his college records. I found out that he was friends with Burt and Danny Green. The two were brothers and he met them in his first year. Burt became a doctor and Danny a scientist, both are stationed on the Citadel. Best part, Danny's got a criminal record."

"So, if Danny was behind this, why would he poison Gage?" Bjorn asked.

"Don't know, but in terms of your suspects. I'm guessing that's the best you've got."

"So we're going to meet up with Danny then?" Bjorn asked.

"No." Bjorn gave me a questioning look. "I want to talk to his brother. If they're both stationed on the Citadel then I doubt that Burt doesn't know anything about Danny."

* * *

><p><strong>11:00AM, Citadel Time<strong>

**Green's Medical Clinic, Tayseri Ward**

"Looks like you've done very well for yourself Mr. Green," I said, Bjorn and I took a seat in his office.

"Thank you. Helping people hasn't been the easiest of livings but I like to think I've done alright. Now I don't mean to be rude but I've got a tight schedule and I'd like to get this over with."

"No problem. Does the name Reginald Gage sound familiar?"

"Yes, I'm his doctor. But I've known him longer as a friend then a client."

"So you don't know anything about what he did last night?"

"Uh, no, what's this about?"

"He's being held for attempted murder," Burt gave a shocked and confused look. "Most importantly, something entered his blood stream just before it took place. Now he's basically become a mindless freak. We think your brother might be involved somehow."

"I, I, wow. Uh, I don't know how to respond to that."

"Do you know anything about your brother's recent activities?"

"I no, no I don't." He responded quickly, too quickly.

"Do you really want Obstruction of Justice attached to your resume Mr. Green?"

"Okay, I don't know any specifics about his activities. All I know is that he's getting money from someone. He hasn't made any money on a product of his so what ever he's working on still isn't finished."

"How did he got a criminal record?"

"While I was trying to get a clinic started, he joined the Alliance. However he got a war crime for screwing up a juicing substance to make soldiers faster in combat. It did the opposite, soldiers were barely able to accomplish function. After that, he's been on his own.

"Is there anything else you can tell us about Danny?"

"Not much else. He may have been my brother but he still kept most of his work in the dark from me. But, please, don't hurt him."

"Whether he gets hurt or not is his choice Mr. Green." I admitted. I didn't want to upset Burt, but I've always been an honest person, and if I was honest his brother didn't seem like the best of people. "Thank you for your time." Bjorn and I made our way to Danny's location.

* * *

><p><strong>Twenty Minutes Later<strong>

**Tayseri Ward**

We found that Danny worked in a huge abandoned factory not too far from the Driving Range. _Coincidence? I think not. _We walked to the front and found an intercom on the wall. I pressed the button and waited for a response.

"Yes who is it?" A nerdy voice asked.

"Danny Green, I'm Detective Lucas Raycevich. My partner and I are going to have to ask you a few questions. Is that okay?"

"Uh, sure just give me a second."

"He needs a second when he can just open the door from his Omni-tool? This guy totally isn't up to anything." Bjorn said.

"Hell, look at his place. He just needs to appear in white coat and the list of cliched mad scientists is complete."

Sure enough the door opened with Danny on the other side...in a white coat with a datapad. My temptation to arrest the guy on sight was overridden by my temptation to face palm right then and there.

"Can I help you Detectives?"

"We need you to come down to the Academy with us, now."

"Uh, sure, just let me get my outside shoes. These ones get pretty dirty working in here." He turned around.

"Slowly," I said firmly. He did as he was told. He went to a little spot, found his other shoes and switched, slowly. He got up, but then I felt a shoe hitting me in the chest. _Fucking dumbass!_

"You're not going anywhere Danny!" I yelled chasing him. I saw some metal sliding down revealing tubes kind of like the Human Reaper in the Collector base. What was in them was a lot more creepy though. Corpses of all species where revealed in them. Motionless with a few tubes attached to their arms. _Okay. THIS is as cliched as evil scientists get! _I slowed down my pace until I stopped in my tracks looking at this case with a motionless Salarian in the tube. But something was off. The Salarians didn't have any horns on top of their heads like normal and the Turians didn't have complete arms, almost like they were unfinished.

"Okay, on a scale of one to ten, how fucked up is this?" I asked Bjorn.

"I would have to go with ten,"

"What, it's not 'I don't know' for once?"

"I think 'I don't know' isn't a possible answer in this case." The tubes opened again. The Salarian jumped out, immediately tearing the wires and tubes off him and landing on me. I pulled out my P99, shooting until he fell away, which took about four hits. Bjorn lent a hand and I got back up to my feet only to see all the other tubes opening and releasing their zombies. Bjorn and I had played enough games to know the best strategy in these situations...FUCKING RUN! I sprayed pistol shots behind me. I noticed there was a large staircase leading up to a room over seeing the complex.

"We can hold off there while we wait for back up" I ran up the stairwell. We rushed for the door, I pointlessly slammed my fist on the door lock even though it was a hologram. I opened up my Omni-tool and called Terran.

"What now?" he said.

"Bjorn and I are fighting off zombies in a mad scientist's lab and could REALLY use some backup."

"Uh, okay I'll have some people on their way."

*Disconnected*

"So, now we just wait?" Bjorn asked.

"Yep, shouldn't take too long from the..." I was interrupted by a loud thud on the roof of the holdout room. My eyes drifted toward the back middle of the room which had a little hatch being pulled. I took my pistol out of its holder and aimed at the hatch. I quickly glanced at the two doors on both sides and they were surrounded by freaks. _And now my bad ass 007 pistol feels about as useful as a pointed stick. Great._

"Hey Lucas," Bjorn said from the corner of the room. He opened a crate which happened to contain an Auto Shotty and a Revenant Machine Gun. My hands went for the Machine Gun and Bjorn took the Shotty.

"You know they're going to bust open that hatch before back up gets here right?" Bjorn said.

"I know, so pick your poison." Gesturing the two doors. Bjorn picked the right, probably because it was closer rather then it having less of the freaks. Bjorn's hand hovered over the hologram.

"Wait!" I opened my Omni-tool and went to the music library finding the perfect fit.

**Now Playing : Elena Siegman - 115**

"Really?" Bjorn asked.

"If you think I'm going to fight in a zombie apocalypse without some Nazi Zombie tunes, then you are very much mistaken." I grinned.

"Alright; 3, 2, 1, GO!" The door opened, both of us unloading on the five zombies. We were about to head down the stairwell when I looked up and saw a ladder heading to the roof of the room we were just in.

"Hold on, we can fight them off from there and we've got the fire power to take care of the ones already there."

"You've got the ranged weapon; you first."

Bjorn knocked down a few more while I climbed the ladder and planted my feet on the roof. I saw ten of them still trying to bust the hatch open, I didn't do anything fancy like I would have if this was a game and instead mowed them all down with the Revenant. I looked down to see Bjorn kick a zombie downstairs before switching to his pistol and taking the guy out. He looked up and saw my disapproved look.

"What?"

"Dead Island kick, really?"

"You're listening to songs from COD, shut up."

I laughed and aimed my machine gun at the stair well while Bjorn climbed the ladder. Only four zombies showed themselves to my angel of death. Bjorn walked to the other side and took down the remaining ones banging on the door. It was pretty quiet for a moment when suddenly about twenty of the bastards came from my side. I mowed them down just to meet another group getting closer to the ladder, I ejected a clip when another twenty came from the stairs.

"Need some help here!" I called out.

Bjorn rushed over and shot the zombies next to the ladder. I unloaded another large magazine of ammo into them, but there was so many they got to the ladder regardless.

"Fall back!"

I checked the other side which thankfully was empty. A few zombies started to make the edge of the roof which we had no problem shooting down. I ejected another thermal clip, looked behind me to see a few of the undead coming from the other stair well. I shot them down and turned around to see them making it over the edge and getting closer.

"Where the hell is our back up?" I shouted angrily mowing down more zombies.

A shuttle came bursting through the large window near the ceiling. The Kodiak-like vehicle pulled up next to us, the door opened to reveal Shea, Josh, Phil and Paul all ripping up the undead with their M8 assault rifles. I mowed down a few more before hopping into the shuttle, followed by Bjorn. Paul took back the wheel and left the building. I clutched my ear making a ringing noise. _Oh shit. _I decided to take it out on the people inside.

"I said I needed back up not a Goddamn platoon."

"You said you were fighting off zombies." Shea said.

"And would have you come if they weren't zombies?"

"No, probably not."

"You guys are fucking dicks. Where the hell is Danny?" I asked Paul as the others were chuckling at my previous comment.

"He's still on foot but we've got him tracked near the driving range."

_Oh, my, God. _"Paul, drop me off at the entrance of the range."

"Why would..."

"Just do it!"

Paul complied and I hopped outside the range, seeing Danny bust through the front entrance. I chased at full sprint, saw him push someone aside and ran over the mat into the range. The shuttle tracked him when I saw a club near the mat. I looked at it showing the letter "P" on it and I saw Danny straight ahead going past the 80-yard sign. The victim that Danny pushed was still on the ground while I was lining up on the mat. Danny neared the 120-yard marker, I took my chance and hit as straight as I could. The ball sailed as straight as a laser closer and closer to Danny. He looked behind to see me standing on the mat. My eyes stared at the ball. _Come on, come on._

*Smack*

Danny went tumbling to the ground, the shuttle landed right next to him to show the others laughing at the sight.

"PAYBACK'S A BITCH MOTHER FUCKER!"

* * *

><p><strong>12:00AM, Citadel Time<strong>

**C-Sec Academy, Medbay**

Turned out that Danny really was the mad scientist of the Citadel. The freaks Bjorn and I took down where clones he made from shit I didn't even want to know. He was using them as lab rats for his substance, but he wanted to try his poison on a live being. Which was where Gage came in. Danny's plan was to finish the substance and sell it to an organization. But he needed money so he used his old connection with Gage after finding out about his financial troubles and promised Gage a fair cut if he invested. However, in truth Danny didn't like Gage. So Danny made him his first real test subject and figured that since giving him the substance wouldn't come up in any databases and left no trace of him that he would be in the clear. Which was pretty fucking stupid on his part. Reginald Gage was going to fade out of his zombie stage thanks to the medical team and was not going to face charges. As for me, the firefight did it's total on my hearing. I was in the medbay with Rebecca helping me.

"Alright, the damage is nothing permanent and you should recover by tomorrow. You can use this aid for now." She handed me a small device. _I never thought fighting against a zombie horde would cause me to feel like a 85-year old man._

"Thanks. Now, I think I'll be getting some lunch." I got up and made my way to the door.

"Next time don't listen to your shitty music in a gun fight!" She called out.

"Shut uuuuup!"

**Now Playing : Elena Siegman - Lullaby for a Dead Man**

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Again, different then I intended. But hey, I don't care, writing the zombie fight sequence was a lot of fun. Hope you enjoyed.** Now since I'm already surrounded by more Christmas ads then I can fathom, I might as well get in the mood. Which for me means watching Die Hard again while listening to the best ever carol by the Nostalgia Critic. www. youtube watch?v=Z-thYW3No8Y&feature=related Happy holidays and PEACE!****


	10. Chapter 9 : Don't Look Back In Anger

**Chapter 9**

**July 2nd, 2181**

**12:38AM, Citadel Time**

**C-Sec Academy**

**(Pallin's POV)**

It had been just another day at the office. I acquired cases, assigned them to my agents and then the Council gave me a hard time. _Sometimes I hate this job. I_t hadn't been all that chaotic before the humans signed up. They're not bad at their jobs, but when they don't have a case to work on they're like little children_. _I had two new cases, one for Lucas/Bjorn and the other for Paul/Phil. I heard they were at the shooting range and decided to just meet them there. Which was a mistake.

*BANG!*

"WOOOAAAHHH!" Phil yelled.

*CRASH*

I jumped in surprise and looked to see Phil in a crashed wheel chair holding the prototype sniper. The other three came out laughing at the sight. _And the Council claimed this would give C-Sec more respect in Citadel space._

"What is going on here!" Everybody quit laughing and looked at me.

"Oh shit," Lucas said, defeated.

"And what are you doing with that? That's just a prototype!"

"Uh, standard protocol?" Phil said slowly, still sitting on it's side.

"Put it back!" Phil hurried to return the weapon back to the shelf."

"So, are you going to tell me or is this just another mystery?

Lucas sighed. "It was lunch and we didn't have anything else to do. I argued that if you used that sniper in a wheel chair the recoil would push you back and clearly I was right."

"I think my arm's gonna be numb for a week," Phil muttered.

"Just make sure it doesn't happen again. If you really wanted to test that weapon out why wouldn't you just aim it while standing?"

"Where's the fun in that?" Paul asked rhetorically.

I sighed and got to the point. "We got a call about a murder in Zakera; some dead human. Lucas, Bjorn, you're on it."

They nodded, took the detapad I handed them and went back up stairs.

"As for you two, there have been reports of gang activity all over Zakera. We thought it wouldn't last long but it's been escalating for the past few hours. I need you two to investigate, figure out what's going on. Normally these gangs don't like to attract attention. And get Phil to a medic."

* * *

><p><strong>1:00PM, Citadel Time<strong>

**Zakera Ward**

**(Lucas' POV)**

_You know, I'm actually glad that I didn't get a turn firing that gun back at the range. _Bjorn and I made our way to the scene. It was in a wide open part of the Ward right next to a bunch of giant convenience stores. As always there were a few Officers guarding the scene and Izan waiting, status quo.

"What have we got?" I asked him.

"The victim's name is Henry Dent. He took one bullet, but it hit him in the heart killing him instantly. The bullet hole is from a small hand gun, time of death less then half an hour ago. The man still has all of this belongings, so it wasn't a robbery."

"A random killing?"

"That's what it looks like."

I looked around at the convenience store and saw one of the security cameras pointing right at the body. I told Bjorn to see if he could get the footage and he went inside.

"Hey Detective," one of the Officers called. "Got an eye witness, says he was coming out of the store next door, saw the whole thing happen. Said a Turian was running from a Human in a black coat with a red stripe. Multiple shots were fired when one of them hit the civilian and both of them ran off."

"Thanks." I saw Bjorn leaving the store with his Omni-tool active. "You've got something?"

"Yep, footage was taken at 12:30." The footage confirmed the eye witness's story.

"We're going to need to report this," Bjorn said.

"Well let's not waste any more time, we might already be too late."

* * *

><p><strong>1:00PM, Citadel Time<strong>

**C-Sec Academy, Medical Bay**

**(Phil's POV)**

"AH Shit!" I exclaimed as Rebecca put the last bit of Medigel on my shoulder. _Note to self, don't use a prototype sniper rifle while in a wheel chair._

"Do I really need to ask how this happened?" Asked Rebecca dryly.

"Well," Paul said. "He was by himself in front of a terminal..."

"Paul, shut the fuck up!" I interrupted which only made him laugh.

"Alright," Rebecca said. "Just don't make any violent swings and it should be fine by the end of the day. Now get of here, I can't listen to you two bicker all day."

I got up and we made our way to the door.

"Says the person who can't listen to any music without getting into a argument with Lucas," Paul called out closing the door before she could make a comeback.

"So where are we headed?" I asked.

"Nowhere. There are multiple calls and people investigating these gang activities. We just have to put the pieces together."

"So that means sitting behind a terminal and reading boring shit?"

"Yep."

"Fuck."

* * *

><p><strong>1:20PM, Citadel Time<strong>

**C-Sec Academy, Pallin's Office**

**(Lucas' POV)**

"It was an accidental killing. The suspect was trying to take down a fleeing Turian. The victim was just unlucky." I said to Pallin, handing him the datapad. "We've got security footage capturing both of the perps. Bjorn's running them through facial recognition right now."

I waited for a response when suddenly Pallin's eyes widened and didn't blink.

"Something wrong Sir?"

"I know this person!"

_Yeah yeah..Wait. _"What? How?"

"I knew him back when I was a Detective at C-Sec, but..."

Bjorn entered the room with a datapad in hand.

"Found out who It was?"

"Yeah, Zax Alaz. But there's one problem." I looked to Pallin who had a knowing look on his face.

"Zax Alaz died five years ago."

_Oh boy._

* * *

><p><strong>1:20PM, Citadel Time<strong>

**C-Sec Academy**

**(Paul's POV)**

"Shooting at the 800 blocks, lower markets, shopping center. What is going on?" Phil asked annoyed.

"Why do you think we're sitting here going through this shit? It's obvious something has pissed off Invictus and the Drag Brothers to no end."

"Yeah but, what could cause them to do this? Gangs don't attention, now they're firing their guns like it's New Years."

"Well there has to be some reason..." I trailed off thinking back to what I knew. Chellick said they wouldn't draw attention unless they were desperate, stupid or both. But since the gangs are more worried about each other then the Feds, they must know more about what's going on.

"I think I know someone who has the answer."

* * *

><p><strong>1:25PM, Citadel Time<strong>

**C-Sec Academy, Pallin's Office**

**(Lucas' POV)**

"I've worked at C-Sec for over thirty years so I've had plenty of partners, Zax was one of the best. He had a friend to, Jonn Backa. He was also one of the best people I've worked with." Pallin said. "Zax got shot and fell over an edge in this case him and I worked in. His body was never found but he was officially declared dead in 2176. But, officially doesn't always mean the truth."

"How did you know it was him though?" I asked curiously. _The face in the video had red face paint and Zax's profile picture showed light blue._

Pallin held up the datapad and pointed.

"You see his left eye?"

I saw the man's eye being dead white, like Zaeed's bad eye.

"He was an old war veteran, lost his left eye sight in battle. You could have placed this camera a mile away and I still would have spotted him. Different face paint, different clothes, but it's him."

"So what would bring him back from the dead to be shot at?"

"I don't know, but it's not good."

"So what do you want us to do Sir?" I asked.

"Put an APB out on him, see if anything comes up. In the meantime we are going to dig up his old records, see if we catch anything."

"Uh, what do you mean we, Sir?"

Pallin got out of his chair, reached down to pick up an old pistol and holster, attaching it to his hip and walked towards me.

"I'm coming with you."

* * *

><p><strong>2:00PM, Citadel Time<strong>

**Bachjret Ward, Zion Hangout**

**(Paul's POV)**

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Phil asked, getting out of the car.

"I told you Zion has a code of honor and one of those codes is respecting police officers. Besides it worked fine for Chellick and Lucas."

"Except for the part where they pointed assault rifles at them,"

"We'll manage,"

We entered the place, which just like Lucas told us, looked like ass. Every single soul in the Hangout gave us a look. M_aybe this wasn't such a good idea. W_e walked up to one of the Krogan guards near the stairs who blocked our path.

"What do you want Human?"

_Okay, these guys were a lot less intimidating when I was in behind a monitor._

I held up my badge vainly hoping it would have some effect. "I'm here to speak to the leader," I said slowly.

The Krogan slowly moved out of the way and let us up the the stairs.

"Thanks," We walked quickly up the stairs before he changed his mind. We found an old fashioned door leading to what I could only guess was the leader. We slowly opened the door and saw the old man sitting behind his desk with a guard in each corner of the room bearing automatic weapons.

"Please, come in." He said in his deep voice. We complied and closed the door before stopping in front.

"Now, what can I give you two officers?"

"Well, a name wouldn't be a bad start," Phil said, fear clearly showing in his voice.

"I can give you that, if you want me to break the code stopping these guards from turning you into dust."

I gave Phil a look that only said "Nice job".

"If you must call me something, call me the Boss."

_Like a boss! No no no, bad time! _"Uh, we've been getting reports of Invictus and the Drags causing shootings all over Zakera Ward and we were hoping you would know why."

The Boss leaned forward. "You mean you haven't heard?"

"Heard what?" Phil asked.

He smirked. "Both of the gangs have been making simple money exchanges for the past two years. I had the chance to join in a few years ago but, I declined. Because I had seen this con before. They thought they were being very secretive with their investment, but we found out that both would have a Turian come by with an obscene amount of cash for trade."

"So what's the catch?" I asked.

"Eventually both gangs couldn't pay their money fast enough, so they started borrowing money from a secret group bigger then us."

"And what group is that?"

"Let me put it this way, the people they were borrowing from, give me the heebeegeebees. Now lending the money was no problem, until their little earners stopped turning up. Leaving both of the gangs in debt."

"How much in debt?"

"5 Million Credits,"

…

_Uhhhhhhhh. _"That's, a lot." I said slowly. "Explains their unusual behavior."

He reached underneath his desk, pulled out a datapad and handed it to me.

"We took many photos but that is the only one with any real use, this guy was the one with the Drag Brothers."

The picture depicted one of the Drags sitting in front of a Turian with red face tattoos, casual clothes and a blind left eye.

"Do you know his name?" I asked.

"No we were never able to eavesdrop, but I'm sure you can find him in a database. There's no way to miss that fucked up eye he's got."

"Thanks for your help, uh, Boss." _Couldn't he come up with something more original than that?_

"Always happy to help Citadel Security."

We walked away from the room and headed to the car.

"Well that was...interesting," Phil said.

"Come on, let's head back the station. We've got to find out who this Turian is and where he is."

* * *

><p><strong>2:30PM, Citadel Time<strong>

**C-Sec Academy**

**(Lucas' POV)**

"Anything from the APB?" Pallin asked, walking towards my desk.

"Nope, nothing yet. It doesn't even make any sense. He goes from getting shot at in the middle of a public center and then just drops off the grid."

"That was his specialty back when he was in the army. He was always good at disappearing, but he didn't like hiding in the shadows the whole time like a normal stealth operative. So he learned how to make a lot of noise one second and then disappear."

_Sounds more like me playing Splinter Cell. _"Still, you think that a one eyed Turian constantly running would attract some attention."

"It does," Bjorn called from his desk. "Just got a call about a shooting near the factory district."

"It's got to be him. Gangs don't give a fuck about that area. Let's go." Bjorn and I walked out with Pallin trailing ahead. _Going on a case with my boss who yells at me every week, great._

* * *

><p><strong>15 Minutes later<strong>

"Can't this thing go any faster?" Bjorn scowled.

"Really, the guy's probably half way to Omega by now," I added.

"We did some searches on the factory district and found some heat signatures, so they should still be there." Confirmed Pallin, sitting next to us. It was weird seeing my boss with a pistol ready like he never became executor.

We landed and jumped out of the car heading to the last spot where we got a heat signature. We were actually not too far away from where we first woke up after the incident at my house, but this wasn't the time to be thinking about it.

"Come on let's head inside, this complex is big and we don't have much time," Pallin said. We walked to the front entrance, pulled out our pistols and I put my back against the wall beside the door. I looked at Bjorn who gave a nod.

"3, 2, 1, go!"

Pallin opened the door. We busted in, checking corners and coming up empty. We moved up the hallway at a steady but cautious pace. My eyes never left the sights on my gun as room by room we kept coming up empty. We moved out to open areas of the factory surrounded by boxes with raising and lowering floors like a live action Tetris. On the lower levels I heard some voices echoing from the far side of the factory. Bjorn and Pallin noticed too.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" I asked Pallin.

"That sounds like Zax alright."

We sprinted to the sound as it got louder by the second, though the conversations weren't decipherable.

* * *

><p><strong>2:50PM, Citadel Time<strong>

**Zakera Ward, Factory District**

**(Paul's POV)**

"I thought I'd seen the last of this place," Phil said as we entered.

"Blame the two assholes that thought it was a good idea to pull a con on two of the biggest gangs on the Citadel." I said. Though I too hoped it was the last we saw of the place. Returning only brought back memories of watching a movie at Lucas's house one minute and then suddenly being stuck in a dingy, dull, horrid place from a video game the other. Though this wasn't the time to be thinking about that.

"Still got thermal readings?" I asked Phil, I was in front with my pistol ready.

He had his Omni-tool out with the thermal tracker. "Yeah, just keep an eye out though. Three new figures just entered the place."

_Maybe we should have called some back up, then again it's a bit late now. _"Alright, just keep your eyes open." We walked down and saw a staircase to the left. Reaching the top we found nothing but another empty hallway. I took a few more steps when I heard a voice in the distance.

"Got anything?" I asked Phil.

"Yeah just ahead."

Walking quickly, we got close enough to decipher a flanging voice, a Turian.

"We had a plan and then you just ditched me?"

"You knew what you were getting into Zax."

"I didn't know you were going to leave me for dead!"

I turned to Phil. We stopped outside the door leading to a deck overlooking the lower floors. He pulled out his pistol and gave me a nod.

"Alright, 3, 2, 1, go!" I said, hitting the hologram, setting sight on the Turian. "C-Sec put the gun down!" He turned around and quickly put his hands up, dropping the pistol.

"You knew the risks Zax!" Another flanged voiced called out from the lower floor. Phil hand cuffed Zax while I looked over to see a Turian below running away.

"Son of a bitch!" _I knew I should have brought..._

"C-Sec, put your fucking hands up!" A new voice, not flanged called out.

I looked down and saw two humans and one Turian pointing their guns at the fleeing perp. Wait, Lucas, Bjorn and...Pallin?

* * *

><p><strong>(Lucas' POV)<strong>

"C-Sec, put your fucking hands up!" I yelled at the Turian. _Wait, that isn't Zax. _His face tattoos were green and he had no scars. I was about to question him when Pallin interrupted.

"Jonn?"

The Turian stiffened. "Venari? What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question," he hissed.

"Hey Lucas!" A familiar voice called out from above. I looked up and saw the two humans on a deck above handcuffing a Turian with one blind eye, _Zax._

"What the fuck are you two doing here?" I asked recognizing Paul and Phil.

"We were investigating all of the gang activity, Zion pointed us to this guy." Paul gestured to Zax.

"Don't tell them any..."

Pallin interrupted Jonn by hitting him with the butt of his pistol.

"Fuck you Backa! You turned your back on me!" Yelled Zax from above. I looked at the Turian on the ground and my mind flashed back to what Pallin said at the station. _He had a friend to, Jonn Backa_

"What the hell are you doing here Backa? Last I heard you left for some big opportunity." Pallin said, picking him up and slamming him against the wall.

"This was our big opportunity!"

"What was?" I asked.

"Starting a gang war. That's what his fucking "big opportunity" caused," Paul called out ignoring my question.

"It was never supposed to escalate like this!"

"What was it supposed to be like?" Pallin hissed at Jonn.

"Does anybody mind telling me what the fuck is going on?" I yelled before hearing some gun shots go off in the distance.

"What was that?" Bjorn asked.

"Shit!" Paul said above. "It's probably Invictus and the Drags."

"Why weren't they already here?" I asked.

"Cause the shots going off before wasn't them, it was these two dumb asses."

"He was leaving me for dead!" Zax yelled.

"What the fuck did these two even do?" I said, ignoring the whining Turian.

"Conned out a bunch of money from both gangs."

"How much?"

"Five million credits,"

"Five Million?" I echoed loudly.

"I'll tell you the full story later. Let's just get the fuck out of here!" He said, he and Phil dragging Zax with them.

"What the hell did you get yourselves into?" Pallin asked Jonn before dragging him with us, Jonn exercised his right to remain silent.

"Ten types of shit by the looks of it." I looked behind me to see the battle approaching us. We left the open area and headed back into the corridors meeting the other group on the way. I was relived to see we weren't being followed. But that quickly vanished as a bullet went through the thin wall protecting us.

"Move!" Pallin shouted.

"Great job Backa!" Zax yelled.

"You were the one to get caught moron!" Backa yelled back.

"Cause you didn't have a plan for escaping when we didn't pay, and how am I going to pay for Anna's condition huh?"

"Always about you and Anna why can't you get the big picture and..." We saw a shower of Bullets ahead of us from machine gun fire.

"Get down!" Pallin shouted. We all dived prone. My ears rang as the noise bounced off the walls inside. I felt the distinct sound of one of the bullets inching past my head, making my veins just about ready to explode in that brief moment. The gun fire ended but we didn't rise up to make sure the guy wasn't reloading. I slowly got up from the ground, when I did I felt two hands grab me and my face hit the wall. I was back on the ground. My first reaction was to get out my P99. But I found my holster was empty and when I was on my back I saw Jonn holding my gun and aiming it at me.

_Oh shit!_

*BANG!*

I winced at the sound, finding myself still breathing with Jonn landing on me making me wince again at the weight. The body was limp and I had blue blood on my shirt and hands. I looked ahead to see Pallin, pistol barrel smoking, he lifted me up off the ground.

"Come on, we don't have much time!"

"What about the body?"

"We'll cross that bridge later. Come on!"

* * *

><p><strong>4:00PM, Citadel Time<strong>

**C-Sec Academy, Medical Bay**

I stood outside a window in the medbay watching Zax being treated. Right next to him was a Turian body with a cloth covering everything but his feet. An army of Officers and E-Secs came to the Factory District to end the fight between the gangs. Phil and Paul told me the whole story. It was just like what Jake in _Revolver _did to the three Eddies. Zax had given up the rest and confessed he was in on it. However he had different reasoning from Jonn. Zax had a daughter with a very rare medical condition which to be expected was jolly expensive. Zax got in on the Con but didn't plan to pull out like Jonn. It was around then that the disagreements started and they had paid for it. The gangs found out and the first ones to strike were against Zax who dealt with the Drag Brothers. Jonn dealt with Invictus.

I was deep in thoughts when out of all people Pallin appeared beside me, looking through the window but not at me. He didn't say a word so I broke the silence.

"I'm sorry Sir."

"Sorry about what?"

"For dragging you into this, for you having to shoot a friend."

"He was pointing a weapon at one of my detectives. I said he was one of the best partners I had, not one of the best friends."

"Does that really make it any easier?" I pointed out.

Pallin sighed. "No, it doesn't. But you don't have anything to be sorry about, I joined at my own will and I take responsibility for it."

I nodded and put on a small smile. "Thanks for saving me back there,"

"Just doing my job," Pallin suddenly walked away and headed for the main lobby.

"Where you going?"

"To right one more wrong."

* * *

><p><strong>4:20PM Citadel Time<strong>

**Zakera Ward, Zakera Hospital**

**(Pallin's POV)**

I stepped inside, immediately swept up in the sea of different species and professions. I got through and headed to the main desk with a Human Female waiting.

"What can I do for you Sir?"

"I would like to make a payment for someone in care here."

"May I have the person's name?"

"Anna Alaz."

**Now Playing : Oasis - Don't Look Back In Anger**

* * *

><p><strong><strong>Authors Note : Sorry for not getting this chapter out as quickly as I normally do. Blame stuff happening and my writers block. As usual this case as turned out much differently from what I originally intended but I still like it. I wanted to experiment with switching POV's since the past chapters have been from my perspective 99% of the time, so let me know if worked out. I also thought it would be cool to have Pallin in a case rather then just telling us what to do this time around. Special thanks to my mother for beta reading like always and I hope you enjoyed. PEACE.<strong>**


	11. Chapter 10 Part 1 : I Am Your Skin

**Chapter 10**

**September 22nd, 2181**

**9:30AM, Citadel time**

**C-Sec Academy**

Summer was over, Paul called in sick and I walked inside to hear muffled sounds of people yelling. Not exactly the most exciting series of events. A point proven by Phil laying back in his chair, feet on the the desk.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Nothing, mom and dad are just having their first fight."

"Which mom and dad?"

"Terran and Lia."

_Oh great. _The yelling suddenly stopped. Busting out the door, Lia stormed back to the main hall. Terran slowly walked past us to his desk.

"Any new cases?" I asked him, trying to make conversation.

"Of course not. Why do you think you're not working right now." He responded, clearly pissed off. I turned back to Phil.

"Is it wrong to be wishing for a dead body right now?"

"I was just thinking the same thing. I want to be stopping some baddies, not dealing with Police station gossip."

As if on cue our Omni-tools rang with a message.

_From : Executor Pallin_

_To: Phil Stahl, Lucas Raycevich_

_Subject : New Case_

_Report to my office ASAP._

* * *

><p><strong>10:00AM, Citadel time<strong>

**Zakera Ward, Yeo Labs**

We landed the aircar and followed routine. Izan gestured us to follow and we walked into one of the main rooms to find a dead, pale Salarian on the floor. The guy looked a bit older, though in Salarian age that's early thirties, but the main highlight was a large mark that went all around his neck.

"I've got a theory," Phil said.

"Hypothetical or for real?" I asked. Paul told me about working with Phil and his little antics.

"Time traveling 19th century British hanger,"

"Hypothetical it is."

"Our time traveler arrived, got bored and decided to give someone an old fashioned hanging."

"I can guarantee that's not the case," Izan said. "Partially because time travel doesn't exist,"

_Trust me, I would have said the same thing._

"But mostly because the mark indicates that a Hanar is behind the strangulation.

_What? _"A Hanar?"

"There's no rope that has these kinds of marks and there's only one species that could do something like this without rope or wire."

"Who's the victim?" I asked.

"Name's Ferra Yeo. He's the owner of this building. No criminal record, former STG and a scientist."

I always flinched a little bit anytime I heard "Scientist" after the whole debacle with Danny Green.

"Any clue as to what he was working on?" Phil asked.

"None right now, but you don't have to worry about any zombies ambushing you. We searched the place and it's just a bunch of liquids."

"What about the terminals?"

"Their memory banks have been wiped clean and there's no way to recover them. Whatever this guy was working on, it definitely wasn't small time."

"Time of death?"

"About three hours ago. He's got no other bruise marks, so whoever did this took him by surprise."

"How do you take a former STG by surprise? From a Hanar none of the less?" Phil asked.

"It must have been someone he knew. I'll see you two back at the station."

"See ya."

* * *

><p>Phil and I left the scene shortly after Izan since there wasn't much to get from the lab. There were some prints on the terminal, but they were either Ferra's or somebody not in the system. We had spent the last hour and a half trying to find anything on what Ferra was doing but it was all off the record. We found out early on that his partner was a Hanar, but with no evidence or motive, it wasn't anything to get excited about.<p>

"Hey, I think I got something."

_Finally._

I moved to Phil's desk. "What is it?"

"I was looking through this guy's STG records. Had plenty of colleagues but the intriguing bit is that one of his adversaries has a place right next door to his lab."

"What's his name?"

"Sully Olor. And he has quite the rap sheet. Robbery, theft and assault."

"Never knew there was such a thing as an STG screw-up."

* * *

><p>Ferra's lab was empty since everybody got what they needed, so we headed for the building next door. The building was locked, the guy was probably out for a lunch break. While we waited I heard a faint crashing sound from the Yeo's lab. I gestured Phil to follow, my hand hovering over the gun holster. We slowly entered the room and found an odd sight; Sully Olor raiding the room.<p>

_Son of a bitch. _Sully made a move to run but I had my gun ready. "Stop or I will shoot!" That made him halt. I brought out the cuffs and clamped the right cuff to the table.

"Now since you're not going anywhere, mind telling us what you're doing here?"

"Go to hell."

"Not the answer I was looking for."

Sully chuckled. "I'm an Ex-STG. Do you really think you scare me? I could put you out with one fist," Gesturing his right hand.

_Okay, my turn. _"Is he threatening a police officer Phil?"

"Yes, I think he is. How long is that along with robbery?" Phil mockingly counted in his head. "Five years? Ten years?"

"Okay I get it. Ferra is now dead and since the scene was empty I thought I might," Sully sighed. "Might get some of his research."

"What exactly was that research?" Phil asked.

"Ferra and his partner thought they might have learned how to lessen the effect of Kepral's Syndrome."

Our eyes widened.

"A project like that could have been worth millions," I said.

"That's probably why he's dead. Ferra and that stupid jellyfish couldn't stop arguing."

"Arguing about what?"

"I don't know. All I know is that they weren't quiet about it. I heard things being smashed around last night and saw Ferra storming outside."

"What time was this?"

"6:00 PM, maybe later."

I gave Phil and look saying, "He's telling the truth". But that didn't mean we were going to let him go. "Thank you for the information Sully, but you're still coming to the Academy with us."

* * *

><p>"Where are we on the Yeo case?" Pallin asked as I entered his office.<p>

"We just spoke to Sully Olor, who was at the lab trying to steal some of the mans work, even though the scene got cleaned up."

"And he's an Ex-STG?"

"I don't think becoming an Ex-STG was his choice." _Frankly I don't know how the idiot became one in the first place._

"Clearly. What about Ferra's partner, the Hanar?"

"Apparently he's called Mackovic." _Weird name for a Hanar. _"We're looking for him but, most Hanar are identical and we don't have any evidence against him."

"See if Ferra had contact with any other Hanar. If the answer's no then there's only one person who could have done it."

"On it, Sir."

I walked out. Phil waved me over to his desk.

"Got anything?" I asked.

"Yeah, I was looking through the building's security footage to confirm Sully's story."

"And?"

"It plays out exactly like he said. The two start arguing, things get heated up, Ferra throws something at Mac and storms out the building. Though there is one extra thing."

"What?"

He played the footage again pointing his finger at Mac. Mac was standing in an open part of the room while Ferra was behind a counter. When Ferra threw something and stormed out, he didn't realize that what he threw cut off a foot off of one of Macs tentacles

"Ouch, that's got to hurt."

"Yeah, but it also helps us out. How many Hanar float around with a short tentacle?"

I nodded. By now it was pretty late and we couldn't really do much until Mac got found. "Pick this up again tomorrow?"

"Yep, hopefully he'll turn up." Phil said getting his coat from the chair. "See ya later."

"See ya."

I sat back down in my desk and opened up the file for Mackovic. No criminal record, no violence committed and seemed to carry the persona of the Hanar being really polite floating pink squid. So why did something not feel right?

_Maybe he..._

"Hey Lucas."

I jumped and quickly turned around to see Lia standing beside my desk.

"Scared the shit out of me Lia!"

"I, sorry. I didn't mean to interrupted your work." She said nervously.

"It's okay. What's up?"

Lia started to wriggle her hands together before she spoke.

"Well, I, I have this friend. And, he, he had his friend."

_Really Lia? You expect me to fall for this? _She continued to stumble over her words until I got bored.

"Lia, I know you're talking about you and Terran." Interrupting her.

"I but, how?"

"Oh come on, we all know you two are an item, and if you're looking for advice then I'm really not the person to talk to."

"It's just, I asked something big, and he acted like, like I was crazy or something but then he starts saying it's okay, then goes back to saying no again."

"Look, sometimes when we hear something that sounds unreal, it takes a while for us to take it all in. If you suddenly put someone (in this case Terran) on the spot, it can be pretty jarring."

"So what should I do? You saw how angry I was."

"Just give him a bit of time. Sometimes that's the best thing you can do. I'm sure whatever you asked him for, he'll come around."

Lia took a deep breath before speaking.

"I, I guess. Thank you."

"I try."

She seemed to calm down and walked out of the office. Part of me was curious about what she even asked Terran but, that's none of my business. _Now where was I? Oh right, Hanar killer. _I went over the security footage on the day that Ferra was murdered. The camera's Phil used to confirm Sully's story were conveniently malfunctioning so I switched to the outdoor cams. I still had nothing even when the times were matched, until I got one with a small view of the lab's front door from Sully's place. About a minute after the murder a Hanar came floating out of the lab and left like nothing happened. But something was off. It looked like any other Hanar, only a day after Mac got cut. So either the guy had magic healing abilities or...

_Ah shit._

* * *

><p>Phil strode into the empty Detectives section of the Academy, clearly displeased. "So what the hell did you call me back here for?"<p>

"Mackovic is not our killer,"

"What?"

"Look at this footage." Phil looked doubtful. I paused the footage when the Hanar left.

"And there's Mackovic leaving the place," He said.

"Take one closer look at "Mackovic""

Phil remained skeptical until he saw the anomaly.

"Son of a bitch! Now what?"

"I don't know. Ferra doesn't have any other Hanar contacts so that's out of the question."

"Mackovic must have known some others of his own species though."

_Actually. _"Maybe Mackovic didn't want to incriminate himself so he got someone he knew to take down Ferra."

"But if he's going to hire somebody why would he hire another Hanar? That's what they have the Drell for."

_Actually that doesn't make any sense, fuck. _"Well, it's a long shot, but I think we should head over to Mac's place, see if we find anything."

"But we don't have a warrant." Phil pointed out.

"Well I'm not waiting for Pallin to get up to tell us we can go."

* * *

><p>We headed for Mac's apartment in the 800 blocks, not too far away from the lab. We found the room number and headed to the third floor. The door was unsurprisingly locked. <em>Well let's at least give the guy a chance.<em>

"Mackovic; Citadel Security. We need to ask you some questions," I said, knocking on the door.

…

_No response. Well I tried. _I took out the key card the clerk at the desk gave me and we entered to see...

"Shit!" Phil exclaimed, getting behind the kitchen counter. I dived behind the couch, which was soon peppered with bullets. My kinetic barriers blocked one of the shots and I ran back to the counter next to Phil. I looked back to get a split second glimpse of what was going on.

_You've got to be fucking kidding me._

"Since when could Jellyfish fire guns?" Phil yelled over the pistol rounds going off.

I pulled my pistol out and fired back blindly, none of the shots hitting their mark. When the firing ceased I wasted no time and leaned out of cover pointing my pistol at the guy who was now in the open. I fired and saw the bastard hit the ground with a weird clanking noise. I sat for a second to steady my breathing and we both got up. I looked to find the Hanar on the ground and it was the same one on the security camera's, or at least it definitely wasn't Mackovic. One thing was very off though, I saw a spark come from the Hanars direction. We walked ahead to see what it was and found no blood on the ground. Looking at the hole in the body I reached a hand down to get a closer look. Phil and I said in unison.

"What the fuck?"

* * *

><p><strong>Authors Note : I have now gotten my revenge on all of the bastards that keep making cliff hanger endings MUHAHAHAHAHA. Okay I actually did this because I had massive writers block. Sorry that this chapter took way longer then the others to get out, but everything that could have happened, happened so...yeah. I hope you had a happy new year (Unless your one of those that thinks the world is going to end, which in that case I hope you had a really shitty new year) and I'll be trying to get part 2 of this chapter out very soon. Thank you to the handful of people following this story, thank you for another 1,000+ hits last month and thank you for reading. See you next time, PEACE.<strong>


	12. Chapter 10 Part 2 : I Am Your Skin

**Chapter 10 Part 2**

**September 22nd, 2181**

**7:00PM, Citadel Time**

**Mackovic's Apartment**

"What do you mean, it?" Pallin exclaimed from the end of the line.

"I mean Mackovic's friend is a fucking machine!" I responded.

"What are you even doing there? You didn't get a warrant!"

"I wasn't going to wait till tomorrow just for you to say yes, Sir. I had a lead, I followed it, and I have a good feeling I wouldn't have found this thing if I waited."

Pallin sighed. "Do you know what it was doing there?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out. All we saw was the machine recreating Blasto : The Hanar Spectre."

"I'll have Izan and some units on the way. But don't go off without my approval again!"

"If it helps the case then I will..."

"This conversation is over Lucas!" Pallin hung up.

"Asshole." I muttered before walking over to Phil who was investigating the scene. "Find anything?"

"Nothing then other then that this bastard definitely had the strength to strangle Ferra with ease."

"But still no idea about what it was doing here in the first place?"

"Nope."

"Shit."

Within a minute Izan and officers arrived to secure the scene.

"Isn't this suppose to go the other way around Detectives?" He asked coyly.

"Blame this fucking thing." I said gesturing to the machine on the ground.

Silently, Izan walked towards the machine to examine it. After fiddling with his Omni-tool he turned to us.

"This is definitely the same thing that killed Ferra. It's got exactly the same marks as the ones we found in the crime scene. Makes sense that we didn't find any matching prints in the system now."

"Why though?"

"No idea. Normally, if you want someone dead, you hire somebody, not make a machine."

"Any idea how the thing even works?" Phil asked.

"I'm a forensic expect, not a tech head. You would need someone else for that."

Phil and I just looked at each other thinking the same thing.

* * *

><p><strong>15 Minutes Later<strong>

I headed to where the guards were maintaining the perimeter and came out to find a few Turian officers holding up Lia.

"Ma'am, this is a crime scene and we need you to head back."

"I was called here by Detective Raycevich,"

"If you want to steal something Quarian, go do it somewhere else."

_Oh for crying out loud. _"Officer stand down, I called her here to help us with the murder."

The officer complied, but not before I could get one more word to him.

"Insult her again and I'll break both your fucking legs, understand?"

The officer nodded and I walked away to catch up to Lia.

"Jesus Christ," I muttered.

"Thanks by the way." Said Lia.

"Don't mention it. Seems to be a rule that 95% of officers have to be douche bags towards Quarians."

"Well, I do appreciate that, but I was referring what you told me earlier."

"You and Terran got things worked out?"

"Yeah, he called earlier."

"Good. Are you going to tell me what that was all about?"

"Maybe later. Right now I'm more curious as to why you called me here."

I gestured towards the dead "Hanar" when we went through the door.

"Keelah," She whispered. I responded knowing what she was going to ask.

"Uh, that's not why I called you here."

We walked over and Phil show her the bullet hole, with no blood and mechanical parts underneath it all.

"Keelah." She gasped, crouching down to inspect the sentient.

"This is amazing. How did you find this?"

"Our suspect was a Hanar named Mackovic and this was his house. We entered to find this thing instead before it started tearing up the place."

"So what can I do?" She asked.

"All Quarians I know are Tech experts; we just need you to find anything you can on this thing. Where it was made; how it was made, what it can and can't do, etc."

"I can already tell you that someone was controlling it."

"How?" Phil asked.

"There's no AI core. I don't know how it would work but it wasn't in control of itself like a Geth.

"I take it you haven't seen anything like this?" Phil asked with doubt.

"My people created the Geth, but even we haven't seen anything like this."

"I think it's safe to say this isn't government issue," Izan said.

"How can you be sure?" I asked.

"Those parts are by Delumcore Systems. Governments never used them because they became too unreliable. Whoever made this was on a budget."

"So couldn't we just go to the company and get a list of customers?" I asked.

"I doubt that's going to be a short list." Phil said.

"So we just look for anybody that left the place with a large deposit. I'm pretty sure most people aren't going to a workshop to buy enough parts to make The Haninator."

"Whoever made this knew what they were doing." Lia said. "My parents fleet ships had more advanced parts than this thing."

"Where's the company's building?" I asked Izan.

"About ten blocks from here, near the market place."

"Let's hope they're open late."

* * *

><p>Well on thing was for sure, the building for the shop was about as advanced as their parts. It more reminded me of a Salvation Army Thrift Store rather then a parts shop where people make Jellyfish cyborgs. We walked to the front counter and found a Salarian there.<p>

"Ah, what can I do for you?"

"Detectives Stahl and Raycevich. Do you have a list of customers from the past two weeks?"

"Yes I do, just give me one second." He went to the back and returned with a datapad.

"Word of advice; some people don't use their real names." He mentioned.

Fortunately, the list wasn't too long.

_Dom Celler | Human | $200._

_Steller Creed | Turian | $47._

_Zan iller | Turian | $500._

_Winston Churchill | Human | $666._

_Redvan Decker | Salarian | $3025._

_Gatatog Maxim | Krogan | $115._

_Marcus'Ton Nar Tonbay | Quarian | $200._

_Elnara T'lan | Asari | $550._

"That makes two black sheep on the list." Phil said.

"Unfortunately we can only go after the one we're looking for." I saved the name to my Omni-tool and returned the Datapad. When we got outside I entered the name _"Redvan Decker"_ and found that he lived only a few blocks away. I sent the coordinates to Izan and told him to bring in the suspect.

* * *

><p><strong>C-Sec Academy, Interview Room #1<strong>

It was another half an hour before we picked up Decker and dragged him into the station. It was a very different atmosphere with only Phil, Izan, Myself and a few officers in the Academy. Then again it was getting close to midnight, which is 10PM here. Phil had gone to discuss things with Izan and Lia while I dealt with our suspect.

"Do you know why you are here Mr. Decker?"

"Nope, no idea."

I sat down in front of him. "Do you spend much time with parts Mr. Decker?"

"Not really, why?"

"Well, you entered the Delumcore store a few days ago."

"Yeah, I had to get some new parts due to some malfunctions back home and I was on a budget."

"You call 3000+ credits a "budget"?"

"I had a lot of repairs back home."

"You still spent 6 – 12x more then any customer at the store."

"That's not illegal."

"No, but murder is."

"What! Murder?" He exclaimed.

"Those parts that bought have been found covered in a Hanar's skin that killed a Salarian, and if you don't start giving me something you can kiss your few remaining years goodbye."

"I, this is crazy! How does me buying parts translate to murder?"

"You've got three seconds Mr. Decker. One..."

"I didn't kill anybody!"

"Two..."

"No, please."

"Three..."

"I'm telling the truth!"

"Alright Mr. Decker. It's been fun. See your dead corpse in ten years." I said getting up and walking towards the door.

"Hold on! Wait!" He sighed. "Someone told me to go get the parts from the shop. Said it was urgent."

"Does this "Someone" have a name?"

He sighed again. "An old friend, Sully Olor."

* * *

><p>Phil and I marched our way to the prison cells where our little perp was being held alone...for now.<p>

"Piece of fucking shit." I said as we approached. "It was you this whole time wasn't it?"

This startled Sully and the fear in his eyes was very clear.

"What are you talking about?"

"You sent Decker to get those parts for you so we wouldn't find your name on the list."

"What, what list?"

"The list of customers at the Delumcore store. You sent Redvan there to get enough cheap but usable parts to make the Jellyborg that killed Ferra."

"What? Are you insane? Why would I kill Ferra?"

"We looked at your old STG records. You two hated each other and Ferra was the person that got you kicked out. When you started hearing about him possibly becoming a heroic millionaire you had enough and decided to take matters into your own hands," Phil said.

"Now I'll bet my badge that when we get a warrant to your place we'll find the spare parts connecting you to the machine made. You've got motive, opportunity and a connection. We've got everything we need to send you to rot in a cell for the rest of your life unless you come clean on what's going on."

Saying nothing, Sully finally cleared his throat. "It wasn't just me. I got the parts and made sure it would work but I didn't kill him."

"Conspiracy to commit murder is the same thing as committing murder Mr. Olor. Who else was in on this?"

"He said that you wouldn't find us. That you would go for someone else."

"Sully, tell me. Who killed him?"

His answer had us running to the police cruiser and heading straight for the spaceport.

* * *

><p><strong>Citadel Spaceport Dock #20<br>Destination : Kahje**

**9:45PM, Citadel Time**

"Mackovic, you are under arrest for the murder of Ferra Yeo..." I said. The guilty Hanar interrupted me by floating away from the line to attempt an escape...at walking pace. He was greeted by Izan and three other officers with their pistols ready to cut up a lot more than one of his tentacles.

"As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted. You are under arrest for the Murder of Ferra Yeo." _And for putting new meaning into anti-climatic._

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you." Phil said.

"So Ferra's partner was behind it?" Pallin asked on the other line.

"Yeah, turns out that Ferra was going to get most of the funds from the project when it was released to the public. Now because Mackovic was the one that started the ball rolling he felt that Ferra shouldn't get the fame and glory. So he got the brilliant idea of using Sully's building skills to make a Hanar that doesn't actually exist."

"So why was the machine at his house?"

"Mackovic wanted to leave with some of the research at his home. He used the machine to get the things and figured that if we did find his cyborg there, he would still have time to get away. And if we didn't get there when we did he probably would have."

"But the machine was what made you find him."

"If he didn't use that machine and just made it look like a robbery gone wrong, we never would have found him."

"So by trying to be smart he's actually being stupid. Classic. Good work Detective. Though your still dismissed for a week."

"What?" I exclaimed.

"You went to a place without a warrant or my permission. That makes you a danger to the Citadel and it's people."

"But I would have failed the case if..."

"You are dismissed for a week Detective Raycevich, that's an order."

*Disconnected*

This only made Phil snickering at his desk when I walked past.

"Shut the fuck up!" I said.

* * *

><p><strong>The Next Morning, Lucas' Apartment<strong>

**9:00AM Citadel Time**

Well getting dismissed wasn't actually too bad. It did gave me the break I needed at this point. I made myself some breakfast when I heard some noise from the hallway. Normally this building had no noise at all so I made my way to the front door and opened it to find Terran's door wide open, Lia going inside with a bag in her hands. Terran walked to the door presumable to close it when he noticed my questioning look.

"Oh right, umm. You know that fight at the station?" He asked.

"Of course."

"Well, it was about this."

"About what?"

I didn't need to be a Detective to figure it out, I just wanted to hear it from one of them. Terran opened his mouth to speak but Lia came running out and hugged him.

"I'm moving in!"

"It kind of shocked me at first but, the more I thought about, the more it seemed right." Terran said.

Lia thanked him again before running back inside.

"Just friends?" I grinned.

"Well, she lived in those slums and I was just trying to be..."

"Oh for God sake, when will you just admit it?" I only got a shrug in response.

"Whatever, I'm happy for you two. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm hungry." I headed back to my place.

"Don't make too much noise you two." I called out.

"Oh fuck off!"

**Now Playing : The Bravery - I Am Your Skin**

* * *

><p><strong>Authors Note : I wanted to have at least one case involving a Hanar. Now don't complain about this case being weird, originally it was a team of Hanar bank robbers. Which I might write about someday just for shits and giggles. Now we are getting closer to where the prologue kicked off and I would say maybe two more cases before we get there. Which of course means finding out how we got here, dun Dun DUN. Next one involves explosions, pissing off IanGarrus and Cars, so there's that to look forward to. Thank you for reading and as always, PEACE.**

**P.S. I've recently been using a program called Freemind thanks to Jon CJG mentioning it in his behind the scenes. It's a great tool for writers, I highly recommend checking it out and it's FREE, YAY!**

**P.S.S. Thank you to Empeorie for the feedback on this stories progress.**


	13. Chapter 11 : Icarus

**Chapter 11**

**October 22ndth, 2181**

**6:00PM, Citadel Time**

**Armando Raceway, Tayseri Ward**

The bleachers were packed with people enjoying the race as last year's champ Jack Royce ran neck and neck with new comer Seena T'Sai.

"And entering the last lap, the standings are, T'Sai in first place, Royce in second and teammate Olin Sarrus in third!" Matthew Decker announced to the viewers.

"Seena's been known to get frisky in these situations but today she's just ripping the track!" Mallin Sarrus added to the commentary.

Seena nailed the apex on the first corner, Jack behind going wide trying to find a way past with no luck. As they made their way to the long straight away almost at the first power gate. Jack used the last of his cars boost to inch next to Seena as they went for the After Burner pick up. Unable to do anything without wrecking the vehicle, Seena went for the machine guns as Jack roared past leaving a trail of smoke. The tight bends of the track where stopping Seena from getting anything more than one shot on Jack's Aircar. As they made their way to the last corner Seena knew she only had one chance. The final straightaway was barely long enough for her to use the EMP rounds to full effect. Jack had no shields, used his boost, hoping in vain he had enough time to make it across. He got the warning on his HUD indicating Seena had him on target. When the rounds fired he got the typical shaking of the vehicle. Suddenly he heard an explosion, only to be deafened when he figured out it was from his vehicle. The crowed gasped at the sight of his vehicle crashing down to the bottom surface of the track and rolling over several times, flashing in a flaming fireball before it crashed down a few feet behind the finish line.

Everybody held their breathes at the sight while the commentators were reduced to being themselves.

"What's going on?"

"Is he okay? Can anybody down there hear us?" Decker was interrupted by the answer.

*BOOM!*

* * *

><p>"Oh wow!" Paul yelled as his on screen car exploded while Bjorn flew across the line. Izan, Bjorn and myself all just laughed at the sight.<p>

"You just had to dump all your rounds on me at the last second you fucking whore!" He yelled at the man responsible, only getting Bjorn to laugh harder.

"That's not what pisses me off! It's how he how he takes every single power up on the map!" Johan lashed out.

I got up to get a drink laughing as I had gone through this many times back home. When I returned, Izan's Omni-tool rang and walked away to answer. His smile was replaced when he got back and there was only one man that could do that at a time like this.

"What is it?"

"There's been an incident at the Armando Raceway."

I looked back at the screen of the game _PRL Thunder : 2182._

_No fucking way._

* * *

><p>Sometimes life really is stranger then fiction. With Paul, Izan, Johan and myself walking to the scene it was exactly like what happened in our little game. Except with a real exploding car and a real body BBQ'd in several pieces. Not that we needed the body for ID. The explosion happened in the middle of the race with hundreds of people in the stands and millions more watching live.<p>

"Any idea as to what caused the explosion?" I asked Johan.

"I would need more time to be sure but, I'm pretty confident it wasn't a bomb that blew up the vehicle."

"How can you tell?" Paul asked.

"First off, unless the bomb was micro; the vehicle would be in several pieces instead of just one shell. And second, the vehicle left a trail of Eeezo which suggests that the vehicle caught fire before exploding."

"Go to the televisors. See if you can get the footage of the crash." I told Paul. He nodded and left.

"Hey Detective," An officer called out.

I walked over and saw him standing next to a Man with a black suit and a similar face attached.

"This is John Royce, Jack's brother and manager."

_Oh. Awkward._

"Detective Raycevich, I'm very sorry for your loss Mr. Royce." We shook hands, his face trying to hide emotion. This was a difficult part of the job, simply because it never got any easier as time went by.

"I just, I don't know how she could do such a thing to him." He stuttered, still amazingly holding back his tears...just. _Wait._

"She?" I asked.

"Seena T'Sai. She was right behind his car when it exploded."

"But don't they use EMP rounds?"

"Yes, but she must have changed them. The car was in flames before it exploded."

"Why would she do that?"

"Those two have been rivals ever since the season started."

"Hey Lucas," Paul called out. "You're gonna want to see this."

I made my way over to Paul, Izan and Johan. Paul started up the footage from the cameras on a datapad which matched Johns statements. Nothing had been wrong with his vehicle until Seena shot at him with the machine gun rounds. Except they couldn't be EMP's.

"Do you know where she is?" I asked Izan.

"She was at her team's garage earlier. She made her way home not to long ago."

Paul and I made our way over to the police cruiser. When he booted up the systems and lifted the car into the sky.

"Looks like Jack's rival gave him *Put on sunglasses* A speedy death."

…

"Don't you have that song on your Omni-tool?" He asked, breaking the awkward silence.

"Why would I have a song from a show that I hate?"

"Oh forget it."

"Was that really the best you could come up with?"

"Do you have anything better?

"No."

"So shut the fuck up."

* * *

><p>The debating went on and on until we picked up Seena...Which continued again just to annoy our murder suspect. Who's to say being a Detective could not be fun? The torture ended when we returned to the Academy and put the Asari into one of the interview rooms.<p>

"Why did you leave the scene Miss T'Sai?" I asked. I sat in front while Paul leaned on the wall.

"Because I wasn't doing anything and I wanted to go home."

"Really? Because most innocent people don't leave the scene within minutes of the incident."

"We had a rivalry, yes. Doesn't mean I killed him."

"Then why does the video show your vehicle firing live rounds at Jack Royce?"

"What do you mean 'live rounds'?"

"Live rounds, as in. Real rounds that do more than just fuck with circuit boards."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"So we can just take the video footage to the DA, have you locked up for life and call it day."

"I didn't kill him!"

"I am waiting."

"I left the scene because I was the last one to see him before the race and I knew how that would look."

"So you thought it was better to walk away from the scene and make you look guilty," Paul said flatly.

"I panicked, alright! But there's no way I killed him."

"Why not? I'm not going to just take your word for it Seena." I said, still bored.

Seena seemed to be in a state of mental torment with herself before she looked at us.

"Jack and I were sleeping together." She blurted out.

_Uh. _Paul and I just looked at each with looks saying "What the fuck?" While Seena looked down at the ground.

"Is there anybody else that knows about this?" I asked slowly.

"We were eventually going to tell people but. But Jack suddenly said he was being blackmailed, someone had photos of us. That's why I saw him before the race started."

I sat for a long while thinking everything through before asking another question.

"Did you have any clue as to who the blackmailer was?"

"I can't say for sure, but, I had a feeling it was Clive Parsons."

"Clive Parsons?" I asked.

"Head of the PRL, our boss essentially. He was the one that made up our rivalry."

"And why did you think he was behind it?" Paul asked.

"Jack and I were their main reasons that his races were getting so many hits. The last three seasons were declining to the point where his company was threatened to be shutdown. Then I came along and won the first race of the season by a nose. He orchestrated the rivalry between us and paid a huge check."

"So you think he found out about it and blackmailed Jack.?"

"He was the most likely culprit. He likes to know everything about his racers so I wouldn't be too shocked if it was him."

I looked at Paul who gave me a nod saying, "We've got enough".

"Thank you for your time Miss T'Sai. I'm going to need you to make a statement before you leave the Academy."

"I will Detective."

* * *

><p><strong>October 23rd, 2181<strong>

**7:00AM, Citadel Time**

**C-Sec Academy**

Paul and I were able to get warrants for the houses of both Seena T'Sai and Jack Royce. But it was long past nightfall since we got them so we decided to hold it off till the next day. I woke up in my usual annoyed manner and jumped into the shower to try and wake up. The only difference being that it was my birthday. Well, not technically since it was about 6 days after my B-day back home and we arrived here on March 6th. But I don't think I could ever get used to my B-day being on February 29th.

When I got to the Academy though something was off. Many of my friends and a few other detectives were all piled around Paul's desk. _Can't be that it's my birthday. Maybe they were able to get the blackmail pho..._

_Oh for fuck sake._

I stormed to the desk and snatched the datapad to found (Unsurprisingly) photos of Jack and Seena in bed.

"Getting off over blackmail photos guys? Really?"

They all started denying it in unison.

"Everybody not involved with this case, fuck off."

"Why? We're all detectives here." One of the Turians countered.

I responded with holding up my Omni-tool to display my list of contact names, the cursor was over the last person they would want to find out.

_Executor Pallin._

Everybody who were having there eyes dried out earlier instantly broke out into a quick run back to their desks. One of the Turians slammed it's foot into the leg of the desk. Ian was being pretty discrete, until he turned a corner to have Rebbecca starring at him with a face that could make Marcus Fenix squirm. I decided to get away from the mess and headed to the lab to find Izan and Johan.

"Find anything?" I asked.

"Well I found multiple traces of Semen at both Jack and Seena's houses, so Seena's story does have the ring of truth to it. The Blackmail photo's only confirmed it."

"I also did some digging into the explosion that killed Jack," Johan said waving me over to his station. "The cars in the PRL use Mass Accelerator Machine Guns, the same kind of machine guns they use on gunships. But the rounds are harmless since they only fire EMP bursts that shut down the car, same goes for the missiles. However, because only the Ammo type is changed, someone could have easily gone in and put it back to fire live rounds. Whoever did must have known Jack since anybody else would not have been allowed within thirty feet of his car."

_Well that helps narrow it down._

* * *

><p><strong>Parsons Raceway, Tayseri Ward.<strong>

**8:30AM, Citadel Time**

"So, how can I be of help detectives?" Clive Parsons (Head of the PRL) said in a annoying fake British accent.

"We'd like to ask you a couple questions about Jack," I said.

He sighed. "It's real sad. He was one of the main reasons people watched races. We've lost a legend."

"Did you have any discussions with him before the race?"

"Not really. I'm the head of the company. I'm a busy guy. Though I did talk to him a week before the last race."

"Did anything seem odd about him? Any fear or anxiety?"

"No, not really. He did seem to be hiding something though, I suspected a small problem with his fans or something like that."

"So you didn't know that he and Seena were in a relationship?"

"What?" He asked suddenly sounding like a New Yorker.

"Careful there buddy; your English accent's run it's course." Paul smiled.

I took the datapad and showed Parsons one of the non explicit but still revealing photos of Jack and Seena together.

"These pictures were used to Blackmail them. Are you sure you don't know anything about this?"

"No, this is all quite the shock. Those two were supposed to be rivals not lovers!"

Parsons may have been claiming he didn't know anything but, most people would be more shocked than angry. Though I still didn't have much to bring him in yet.

"Thank you for your time Mr. Parsons. Just note that until this investigation is over, you're going to have to stay on the Citadel."

"Yes I know how it works."

* * *

><p>We had a few talks with some employees that didn't get us anywhere. So we went to the last place on the list, the garagePit lane of Team Sarrus to talk to his friends and coworkers. At first sight was his Teammate, Olin Sarrus. An orange-skinned Salarian like his father Mallin who was one of the PRL's commentators. He noticed us walking towards him.

"Can I help you with something?"

"Detective's Raycevich and Edwards. We need to ask you some questions about Jack Royce."

"Yeah, still trying to wrap my head around him being murdered. He knew he could die on the track, but never imagined anything like this."

"What was your relationship?"

"I was always more of a Velan Brillin fan back when I was in the junior leagues, but when I had the chance to join Jack's team I went for it immediately. He was a nice guy. He wasn't the kind of person that reveled his success, he just kind of seem to take it for granted. Though I didn't really get to be friends with him."

"Did anything seem wrong with him recently?"

"He seemed to be a bit more annoyed about a week ago. I just assumed it was something minor. But before the race he seemed to be a bit more anxious, like he was trying to put something out of his mind before starting. When I asked him about it, he said it was personal. So I left him alone. If I actually took the time to figure what was bothering him, I might have been able to stop this."

"Thank you for your time Sarrus."

He walked away as we entered the garage with some of the crew still cleaning up. The one we wanted to talk to was standing in the back corner; Big, Bald and if I'm honest, scary.

"Yes?" He asked, deep voice shaking everything around him, including me.

"Detectives Raycevich and Edwards."

"Peter Hans. I'm the head mechanic of Team Sarrus."

"What was your relationship with Jack?"

"We go way back. I used to be the head mechanic of a junior team a couple years ago. He was on it then. After he moved onto the bigger leagues he requested me for his team. I had never dreamed of working on anything like the PRL but, jack made that dream come true."

"So he helped you out?"

"Yes, he was a very good friend."

"What about his teammate?"

"We got along fine, though he seemed to stick behind Jack all the time on the track. Then again that's probably the team captain telling him to do that, I'm just the mechanic."

"Did Jack ever say anything odd recently?"

"That's a broad question."

"He and Seena T'Sai were in a relationship. Did he ever tell you about that?" Asked Paul.

Unsurprisingly, this surprised him, like everybody else.

"No, he didn't. Though that does explain something."

"What?" I asked.

"I saw him and the boss, Clive Parsons get into a argument recently. I couldn't hear what they were saying but it was getting pretty heated. And right before the race he seemed to be really zoned out. Normally he's completely focused before a race but something seemed to be on this mind yesterday."

"He was being blackmailed, do you have any idea who it was?"

He looked thoughtful. "I think I know. If Clive found out about their relationship he would be furious since it would go against their contract."

"Seena told us they couldn't go public right away. They were waiting until the season was over." Paul told me.

"He said that he didn't know but he seemed much more angry then shocked, as if he already knew." I replied

"I bet you any money it was him! And he would have had access to all the cars since he was in charge." Peter said.

* * *

><p><strong>C-Sec Academy, Shooting Range<strong>

**10:30AM, Citadel Time**

We brought in Clive but C-Sec was still in the middle of searching his house after we got a warrant. I decided to kill some time by capping a few at the range. When I got down there I heard the ring of sniper shots. I found Garrus and Ian firing off a couple of rounds with a M-92 Mantis at hologram targets. They were hitting them all in the kill zones but then again the targets weren't moving.

"Wouldn't it be more of a challenge if they weren't standing still?"

They stopped shooting and gave a look as if insulted Garrus' mother. Which was shortly replaced with two big fat grins.

"Tell you what Lucas. We'll add you into a showdown. Whoever gets the most points on three targets in the shortest amount of time wins."

_Oh yes! _I jumped in excitement and picked up a Mantis off the wall. Garrus was up first, I saw the three moving targets while I loaded some heat sinks into my Sniper.

Garrus loaded the first chamber and shot the target right in the center getting a 10. He cocked the sniper and hit the second target in the heart getting 15 and lastly hit the final target in the head for another 15. The datapad on the side rang adding the score.

_G. Vakarian | 40 | 05.49 Seconds_

Ian was next up and was still very impressive despite being behind Garrus.

_I. Shaw | 35 | 06.09 Seconds_

I got set up, tweaking the sights on the scope just a bit to match my preferences. Garrus and Ian both looked dubious as I got ready.

_3, 2, 1, mark! _I loaded and hit the first target in the head, cocked the sniper while aiming for the next target to get right between the eyes and tookout the last target with the same faith.

_L. Raycevich | 45 | 04.53 Second_

The cocky looks were suddenly replaced with shocked annoyance.

"Oh don't worry, probably just B-day luck." I said. Chellick used to be a sniper back in the military and I asked him to give me some lessons, not that I would tell those two that.

* * *

><p><strong>30 Minutes Later<strong>

Paul and I walked to the interview rooms to talk to Parsons but we were surprised to find Pallin.

"What's going on Sir? I'm about to interview our suspect."

"Yes I know Lucas but not this time."

_What? What did I do?_

"You didn't do anything." He read my mind. "But I have a bit of a history with this dirtbag and would like to handle this myself."

He headed to the door while Paul and I stood behind the two-way mirror

"Why do you think he's interviewing him?" Paul asked.

"Probably didn't get his daily share of people to shout at."

We watched Pallin enter the room.

"Long time no see Mr. Parsons. Seems you've been a very busy man."

"What are you doing here Pallin? I thought I was waiting for some detectives."

"I may be an Executor now Clive but that doesn't mean I can't talk to an old friend. Especially with something as interesting as Murder."

"Murder?" He exclaimed.

"You lied to us Clive. You knew about the relationship between Jack and Seena."

"Alright, I knew about it, so what?"

"We got a warrant to search your place earlier Parsons. We found cameras and many photos of Jack and Seena together. An eyewitness saw you arguing with Jack a week before the race. But Jack didn't budge so you blackmailed him to end the relationship. But he still wouldn't stand down so you killed him!"

"I, what? This is insane."

Pallin got up from his chair to head to the door.

"I didn't kill him. I had no reason to."

"He was in your way and you don't have the best history of giving people second chances Clive."

* * *

><p><strong>30 Minutes Later<strong>

I was sitting at my desk thinking even though Pallin seemed to be determined the case was done. Paul was just waiting for some news before Pallin came up to us.

"We've got enough motive to pin him to the scene. We'll be sending the news to the DA later."

"Andy didn't kill him."

…

There was a long silence while Pallin looked at me as if I'd transformed into a Geth.

"What do you mean?" He said.

"We have motive and evidence, for Blackmail. But not for murder."

"So what are you trying to get at?" Paul asked.

"I'm thinking he blackmailed him. But the murder was someone else who knew it would get pinned on Clive."

"Who and why though?" Pallin asked.

I pulled out a datapad with my suspect in mind which produced weird looks from the two of them.

"How can you be sure?"

"Think about it. He was always behind the big star, always pushed to the sidelines, never got any of the fame and attention despite being one of the reasons Jack was so successful. With the amount at stake, I think it's easily enough to kill for."

Pallin tried to look doubtful, but failed to since seeing my point. "I'll get a warrant for his place, I hope you know what you're doing Detective."

* * *

><p><strong>Parsons Raceway, Tayseri Ward<strong>

**12:30AM, Citadel Time**

"Olin Sarrus, you're under arrest for the murder of Jack Royce." I called out at the Salarian. He looked at us and decided to do the stupid thing, he jumped into his racing vehicle and drove off.

Paul and I looked at the spare car in the garage with the same idea. Paul got into the drivers seat, while I got into the side sitting on a bunch of metal bars with my right hand holding onto the chassis. Paul booted up the engine and drove out of the garage.

_Great, I'm in another car chase with Paul in a vehicle that goes 3x faster with my ears bleeding from the noise and my ass being turned into dust from sitting on the floor covered in parts. Fucking brilliant._

Olin was flying at very low levels but we knew that he was going to have to move up very soon, unless he wanted to crash straight into a super market. Higher up we were greeted by Olin right in front of us hitting his boost to jump ahead. Paul didn't have any but was still able to keep sight on the perp.

"Aren't you gonna shoot the drive core like before?" Paul shouted so that I could hear him.

"The window is just little cat flap in this thing. I can't do shit." I had an epiphany. Olin was probably able to use the vehicle's weapons from the races by breaking into their systems so he wouldn't have to drive over markers to get them like on a race track. I couldn't hack stuff but I knew someone who could.

After a few seconds I heard Terran's voice come through.

"Jesus what the fuck is going on there?"

"We're using a PRL car to chase after one of the suspects. I'm wondering if you can..." My body slammed into the right side of the vehicle after a sharp turn.

"If you can hack into the systems and unlock the weapons for us."

"That's going to be a bit difficult from here."

"Can you do it?"

"I said it's difficult, not impossible."

Within twenty seconds of more banked turns and swearing the weapons system came online. Paul went for the missiles but a person like Olin would have known how to dodge them.

"Use the EMP gun rounds. He can't dodge those once you get on target."

Paul shot a couple rounds missing the driver by a few feet to right. He was about to shoot again before Olin banked low right next to a building. But we caught up since the boost systems were now available. We were right on his tail when Paul fired the rounds disabling the car mid flight. Olin was heading going down in front when his vehicle smashed through the windows of a building and slid all the way across the floor to the other side of the building. Paul slowed down to a crawl next to the opening so I could get out and cuff Sarrus.

"Get units here ASAP!" I yelled before planting my feet on the ground.

I took my pistol out and ran to the other vehicle. There were tones of people in the building scared to death but thankfully no injuries. I peered into the car close and got a foot to my face. I was pulled into the vehicle to see Olin, or more specifically his fist. He was going for another hit before I kicked him in the shin, stunning him. His fist still hit me but had much less force behind it than the first. Before he could get up I hit him with one blow knocking him on his back, but he kicked me in the chest before I had enough time to cuff him. I was going for another hit when suddenly I felt the vehicle bank and made a really loud screeching noise.

_Oh you have got to be shitting me._

I looked to the window to see the right side of the car looking to the bottom of the street. Olin made a beat to get out but I grabbed his leg and pulled him to the other side. I made my way to the front when he grabbed my leg instead. With both hands on the edge of the building floor and the vehicle only held only by a couple of wires, I kicked Olin in the head making him fall back. My hands were slipping as the vehicle was in it's first stages of falling down when I felt hand grab mine. Looking up I saw Paul with a couple of other officers at the scene.

"How fucking cliché is this huh?" He said, pulling me up to the floor.

I was laughing but more from relief then his response as I just collapsed to the floor with heavy breaths. Followed by an extremely loud crash sound at the bottom of the building.

* * *

><p><strong>C-Sec Academy<strong>

**1:00PM, Citadel Time**

"Olin Sarrus thought that being Jack's teammate would get him in the spotlight like he always dreamed. But he found out that he would always be pushed aside in favor of the known figure. So when Olin found out about the blackmail and the relationship he figured it would be his perfect chance to move Jack aside. We found weapon rounds needed for the vehicle at his house."

"Well, it's too bad I can't put Clive into prison for life. But he'll still be charged for Blackmail. Good work you two."

I nodded but still had one thing on my mind. "I'm just wondering Sir. What was your past with Clive Parsons?"

Pallin looked at me, clearly thinking, but it thankfully wasn't on how to kick my ass since he then said.

"Take a seat."

* * *

><p><strong>Lucas' Apartment<strong>

**7:00PM, Citadel Time**

_Well, after that I don't blame Pallin for wanting to put Andy in for life. He's one sick, sick mother fucker and what was going on?_

"Happy birthday to you!"

_Oh yeah right, birthday cake. _I shook my head to rouse myself from the ending of the song I always tried to zone out before blowing out the candles and getting the knife out. Terran and I being the first ones since his B-day was in the same month. Well that and my Dad's. _Which I still miss quite a, oh don't think that now!_

I pushed the depressing thought of lost out and enjoyed the party while it was still on. I convinced Shea, Josh and Paul to play against me in a some _Zion : First Contact _that reminded a lot of Halo just with better graphics and with Turians as well as Humans, which got a lot of laughing from me and a lot raging from the others. All of the C-Sec buddies came and had a good time when finally the party was starting to die down around midnight. When the last of the people were out I decided to do the worst of the clean up and do the rest of it the next day. I threw some cups in the trash when I suddenly my Omni-tool rang.

_Probably somebody forgot something, they always do. _But I found that the messengers name was blank. Curious I opened it up to find out what it was.

Well put simply, it wasn't chain mail.

_To : Lucas Raycevich_

_From : Unknown_

_Dear Lucas H. Raycevich_

_Since it's your birthday I thought I should contribute as well. If you want it, meet me at the Park in Tayseri Ward at 1:00AM, come alone._

_From _

_The Man that brought you here._

**Now Playing : Michael McCann - Icarus**

* * *

><p><strong>Authors Note : Yeah that's right, in your face writers block! It was nice to get a full chapter out rather then do them in two parts. This case was pretty fun to write and the ending is very exciting for me. The next chapter will end just where the prologue begins, hope I don't screw it up. Thank you for reading and tell me what you thought of the fight scene since it was quite different from my others. So as always, PEACE.<strong>

**P.S. If you want a kick ass darker ME fanfic, then do yourself a favor and check out this one : http:/www. fanfiction .net/s/7446218/1/ Those_He_Leaves_Behind (Remove Spaces). It's unique, it's interesting, it's dark and it's great. It really deserves more hits and reviews. PEACE.**


	14. Chapter 12 : La Puerta Del Diablo

****Authors Not**e : One of the shortest, but more important chapters I think. I do not own any of the properties mentioned in this chapter.**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 12<strong>

**October 24th, 2181**

**1:00AM, Citadel Time**

**Nillace Park, Tayseri Ward**

It took awhile to recover from the shock of the message. With no clear plan except to figure out what the fuck was going on, I had an S.O.S. message ready to send to my friends if anything were to turn south. The park was empty but because of the security cameras, it wasn't a place for dealers. I looked at the bench in the middle that was empty at the moment, I looked to my left for a second to find something to see while waiting, which was a mistake.

"Hello Lucas."

I turned to find the once empty bench now supporting a man in a suit. _Hold on a second. The eyes, the rape face, the emotionless manner. _

"I should have known creeps like you don't get jobs delivering magazines." I said, barely containing my rage.

"That's not the only thing that you should know Lucas."

"Why are my friends and I here?"

"Straight to the point are we? Okay. It's not why, you should be asking. It's, how."

"How are we here?"

"I'm in control of your minds."

_What? _"Could you repeat that?"

"I, am, in, control, of, your, Minds."

"You dragged me all the way here to tell me some bullshit like that?"

The man rose from the bench to stand in front of me.

"I understand that none of this has made any sense but you could at least come up with something better than..." Suddenly the park became a dark corridor and the creep vanished. "That."

"RAHHHHHHHHH!"

I whipped around to see a door behind me get bashed until it fell to the ground, revealing the monster from Amnesia.

"What the f...?"

"RAHHHHHHHHHHH!"

I had watched enough Pewdiepie videos to know what to do in these situations.

"Fuck it!" I yelled and ran as fast as my body allowed. I needed to find something to slow the monster down. The hallway made a turn to the left, I jumped and landed my feet on the side of the wall to boosting me forward. Landing back on the ground, I realized the corridor was not from an ancient haunted house with a bunch of screaming monsters. But a 21st century tower block. The monster was gone to and suddenly I had black fingerless gloves with a different shirt and pants.

"_What the fuck?"_

I heard voices down the hall. Still heavily breathing I walked slowly down the hall to partially opened the door. When I peeked in there were two middle-aged guys in front of some soldier in a US Army uniform. _Wait._

"Well the blast yield matches Russian suitcase nuke specs, we put Dima in country at the same time. Do you know how that looks?"

"Dima was trying to stop it. The Paris nuke must have been one of the missing ones."

_I ask again. What. The. Fuck? First I'm in amnesia while coming from Mass Effect and now I'm in fucking battlefield?_

"Bullshit. Then what? Didn't you still let it..." The second middle-aged guy suddenly looked at the door to see part of my face.

"It's Dima, get him!"

_Wait what? _Suddenly two soldiers with M4's approached from the other side of the hallway. My adrenaline kicked in again when I busted into a full sprint down the hall. _The fingerless gloves, the gray shirt,_

"What the?" I said, in a deep Russian accent. _And the voice; how the hell did I become fucking Dima? _

I kept running down the hallway, terrified shock still making me deaf to the bullets whizzing by. Suddenly my left arm shot up in pain while I still kept running. The hallway lead to a closed off room with a door slamming locked behind me. I stopped moving to the take a breather when the pain in my left arm quadrupled as my adrenaline wore off. I turned around to look what was ahead to see Agent Hudson's fist appeared in front of me, just like in Black Ops.

Before I could even react I felt the contact and my nose breaking in the same instant. My body fell, but rather then hit the floor below. My body kept falling when I realized I was in the vacuum of space, or more importantly. _You can't breath in space!_ My chest pain increased, I was suffocating from the lack of oxygen and my skin looked like a chocked smurf. I started to slip away when my back made contact with something and I could breath again. I was shot up into the air again to see a familiar piece of land I hit face first.

I raised my other arm to wipe the dirt, grass and blood off my face to take a look at my surroundings. Realizing why the ground seemed familiar; it was the back yard of my house. Everything was there; the trampoline, the outside deck, the hot tub, bird feeders, green grass and my parents looking out from the window smiling.

_Wait._

I double checked my parents faces and saw them wave with big glued on smiles. Something was off. Which was only confirmed by the next sight of the two bodies exploding, covering the window in their own blood. I had seen some sick stuff but even I was having a hard time keeping my dinner in check. This was so artificial but so real at the same time. The bodies, my parents were now turned into molecules while everything else seemed normal. This was the point where I was just about ready to breakdown. Feeling all sense of control, morality and reality disintegrate as quickly as the people in front of me.

_Make it stop! Just end this!_

"Okay." The other voice returned.

I was kicked into a sitting position, the creep standing in front of me with a pistol. I was about to have a go at him when my sights suddenly changed into me sitting in a chair with a giant overlay on top, similar to the chairs in Crysis 2. The top part covering me completely opened up with the creep in the same spot as before.

There was a long silence due to me looking around breathing heavily.

"What is this?"

"It's where you've been for the past eight months Lucas. And from the looks of it, you've been having it a bit rough."

I looked to where he was gesturing and saw my left arm bleeding profusely. Only then did I feel the shot of unimaginable pain coursing through my body.

"I do apologize; getting shot looks like no fun. There was this one time in Nam where a comrade; I didn't know his name, was just..."

"Cut the bullshit," I hissed. "You brought me here for a reason; why?"

He almost seemed glad.

"Straight to the point, good. Just a quick talk all to ourselves, I hope the others aren't too much of a distraction."

I looked to my left and saw a chair identical to mine but closed off. I quickly stood up to get a better angle when I saw six of them all lined up. Which only meant only one thing.

"That's the rest of them isn't it?"

"No it's a bunch of empty chairs I put in for show. Of course it's them."

"Why us?" I asked, ignoring his snarky attitude.

"Fate. We needed some test subjects for our program. People who didn't know anything about what we were doing and put them in a place that they know, but only from knowledge. We were actually only supposed to get you but, life has its little bonuses."

"What program?"

"Classified information."

"Oh, so the part about you being able to screw with my head is perfectly okay to speak out?"

"Yes."

"You could sink a cruise ship with how much shit you're full of."

"Think that all you want Lucas. It doesn't change the situation." He started to move closer, gun in hand. "I didn't come here to bicker and answer your stupid questions. I came here to make you a deal."

His gun was pressed right against my chest. Bad move on his part. I took my right hand and locked his wrist in place to drop the gun which I snatched. I held the gun in my right hand and backed up five feet. _Have to thank Bailey for that one._

"Never hold someone up with a gun closer than five feet." I said smugly.

"You really have learned from C-Sec. I'm impressed." He put his arms behind his back and walked over to his desk on the other side of the room. "Now, as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted. I wanted to offer you a deal." He sat down in his big leather chair.

"What kind of deal?"

"An offer that could lead you to a life of normality and preferably a life where you don't get shot at." He pressed a button on his desk, a door on the far right corner of the room opened up with a bright white light shining through.

"Outside is a plane that will drop you off at the Vancouver airport. We will give you plenty of cash if you wish to leave everything behind and if not you will then be able to pay for your ride home. Your high school will be finished due to your work experience, and you will have many options to a new life."

"What's the catch?"

"It will be only you."

"What about my friends?"

"Well I still needed to do some extra things so...yeah."

"You're saying that I can go back, but I have to leave everything behind?"

"Repeating what I just offered you isn't going to change anything Lucas."

My gun was still pointed at him but it wasn't sitting perfectly steady. I very rarely thought bout home during my time on the Citadel. After eight months if felt like there was no way to go back. So I adapted to a new life. One that despite all the rough spots I had enjoyed. In many ways I had been able to do things I never thought possible. The man sat in his chair, patiently waiting. There was only one option.

"Time to choose Lucas. It's your life, or theirs."

**Now Playing : Celldweller - La Puerta Del Diablo**

* * *

><p><strong>Authors Note : The next chapter will cover the decision and the aftermath of the event. So a person in control of our minds? Well, we've only scratched the surface with the creep. I was originally going to have way more sequences but, I concluded that it would have been unnecessary. I think parents exploding Dead Space 2 style kind of get's the message across, thank god I don't have a soccer Mom. I would say that we are only three to four chapters from the end of this story. Thank you for reading and until next time, PEACE.<strong>

**Shout out : A recent start up writer has released five chapters for her SI story http: /www. fanfiction .net/s/7750923/1/ Welcome_to_Mass_Effect_Aw_Crap (Remove Spaces) So far it shows promise and is already getting a lot of hits, check it out, PEACE.**


	15. Chapter 13 : Till I Collapse

**Chapter 13**

**June 29th, 2012  
>7:27AM, Earth Time<br>Unknown Location**

"Time to choose Lucas. It's your life or theirs."

_I think this is about where we came in._

"It's time to choose."

"I'll stay here." I said, knowing that there was no turning back. This brought a smile to the mans face. He opened his mouth to speak but, I interrupted.

"On one condition."

He kept his smile surprisingly.

"You no longer change anything about the canon."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't play dumb with me. Lia arriving four years early, Garrus' partner Ian Shaw; I don't want anymore of it. From now on, anything that happens to people is what would've happened originally."

"All right. I can deal with that. Even if screwing up canon is fun. Now I would suggest that you should head back if you want that arm fixed." He Shrugged

This time it was my turn to act smug. I stood and aimed the gun right between his eyes. I would have cocked the gun pointlessly for classic Hollywood movie intimidation but, it's kind of hard to do when your left arm is about as limp as Stephan Hawkings.

"Now why would you want to point that at my head?" He asked mockingly.

"You took my normal life from me. Hell you took it, raped it with a fucking grizzly bear and beat it to death with hockey sticks. Do you really expect me to just go back and act as if you're innocent?"

He smiled knowingly but I thought there was no way he could get the picture.

"Just know one thing." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. "This won't change a thing."

"You can never be too careful."

*BANG*

The blank wall behind him erupted with the red blood of his lifeless corpse. My gun barrel still smoking, I stood like a statue, aside from my shivering and still bleeding left arm. _Nothing, I feel nothing...Well, there's me being an idiot thinking revenge held some kind of reward. _I decided to put those thoughts aside. I had an idea while the creep was waiting and it was time to follow threw with it.

I ran to the other side of his desk and pushed the body out of the way. Looking at the computer screen I found the "Classified" info I was looking for. As creepy as the creep was, he didn't seem to worry about other creeps looking at his shit since there were no passwords. I saw enough data on the project to slam down a jumbo jet. There was no way I was going to be able to get through everything before somebody came along however. I opened up the web browser, typed in as fast as I could (Yes I still used hotmail cause I was too fucking lazy to make a Gmail account) and signed into my account. To be greeted by 424 new messages. 400 of which were from Facebook telling me that I had notifications pending.

I went to "New" message and typed in three email contacts, all three being my parents. The data didn't have any video, just text or JPG. images so I was able to send them through email. After I hit send I was going to boot back to the chair, but something on the desk caught my attention. A phone.

It hit me that I was in the real world, for now. I spent the first few days of my new life weeping over not being able to give one final word to my family. Knowing I was never going to get this chance again, I put the gun on the desk and took the phone. I hesitated, wondering whether I should tell them the truth or just leave them be. _No, they have to know. I'm not letting fear compromise who I am. _I called home, not caring what time it was, if my last chance to speak to my family was at 4 in the morning, so be it.

*Ring*

_Come on, pick up._

*Ring*

_Please._

*Ring* *Click*

"Hello?"

"Mom? It's me."

"Lucas? Is that you?"

"Yes Mom, it's me."

"Where the hell have you been? It's been months!"

"Yes I know, I, if I could have contacted you I would have."

"You were presumed dead. So were all your friends. I was fucked up for six months."

_God damn it, I knew it was too good to hope for leaving a past Self behind. _"Look I'm sorry that I had to put you through that, but it's not my fault. I'd give up anything to be able to tell you everything but I don't have time right now."

"Where are you?"

"Honestly, I have no idea. Last thing I remember from back home was watching a movie, getting something to drink and then that package you picked up knocked me out. Next thing we woke up to find ourselves in a video game."

"What?"

"I don't have the time all right. I sent you the files on the project that did this to us. I don't know much but from what I can gather, it's something that allows others to control peoples minds and therefore everything we see, hear, feel, taste and touch."

I could practically hear my mother's confusion, shock and horror.

"Sorry, this is just a lot to process right now. You and your friends woke up in a game because of this?"

"Basically, yeah. There's a lot more too it but, you know..."

"Are you okay?"

_Honest or lie? Well I've always preferred the former, why change now? _"Well, part of the reason why I don't have time is I need to get my arm treated."

"What? How did you hurt your arm?"

_She's gonna freak out. _"Well, I got shot on my way here."

"What!" _And she's freaking out, not that I blame her._

"It's okay Mom, this isn't the first time I got shot at."

"What!" She exclaimed even louder. _I really need to learn how to make people feel better, because I seem to be pretty shit at it.  
><em>

"It's okay Mom, I'm fine, really."

"My son has been gone for eight months, then calls me at 4AM to tell me that he and his friends were kidnapped by mind controllers that transported them into a game where he got shot! So excuse me for not taking this to well."

It was my time to go.

"Listen," I started. "If I could go back I never would have opened that box that started all this mess. But it's too late for that. I just want you to know that, no matter what ever happens I'll always be with you." I had to keep my head up to stop my wet eyes from dripping. "You remember how I would always joke about how, "I'm not going to miss you, blah blah". Let's just say, it's still just a joke. I wouldn't have anybody else be my guardian. And I'm sure all my friends would be saying the same thing about their family's right now if they could."

"You were always your own man Lucas, and I wouldn't have it any other way."

I couldn't help but smile. This was harder than any fight, physical or mental I had faced before, but at least I could close this with a small amount pride.

"Make sure you release those files Mom. Don't let these people do to others what they did to us. I'm sorry it had to end like this. I love you."

"I love you to."

"Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

*Click*

Those last words were going to never leave my head. The thought that I always came back to though, was that I was able to obtain those words in my head at all. I stood starring out into nothing for the longest ten seconds of my life. Until my brain activated itself again, and realized that I needed to get into the chair quickly. I opened all the drawers in the desk to make sure I didn't miss anything, all of them being empty. Except for the one on the bottom right. To anyone else it wouldn't have mattered, but to me it was the equivalent of a Christian feeling the hand of God. I found seven pictures, real physical pictures of my friends with their families. I stuffed them into my pocket and made my way to the chair. Sitting in it the thing automatically activated. Closing over me, I sat with my mothers last words shredding my head to pieces.

"Goodbye." I whispered.

As soon as the word ended I was right back where I had been. On the bench at the park. _Now just to be sure. Omni-tool, check. Custom futuristic P99 pistol, check. Photos I obtained just a minute ago, check. Bleeding left arm causing me to consider drinking myself to death to dull the pain, chec- Ow fuck! God, I should probably get this thing..._

"Treated?"

I froze, along with sound, sense, reality (Though that did disappear for me a long time ago) as I looked to the right side of the bench. _No._

"Oh yes." The creep said in the same clothes, blood stains and all.

"Oh come on Lucas, do you really think I would have actually let you shoot me, call your parents, send files on the project (Which weren't real) and go back again?"

"But, but you..."

"I just gave you something from home. After all, I think you should enjoy some of the past's offerings after what you've been through."

_You son of a whore! _With the top of my head exploding more than Micheal Bay on his way to work, I took out my pistol and fired as many shots as I could at the guy. I was in so enraged it took my brain five seconds to late to figure out that the guy had disappeared again.

"I just wanted to let you know that I won't change any more of the canon, though there are still some things I added that I can't be removed anymore so...yeah." He said disappearing, again.

_I can't fucking believe this._

"Oh also, I disabled the security cameras here. After all, it would be kind of weird to show a guy on his birthday shooting teleporting men in suits like me."

He disappeared, again! As angry as I was, there were two things he was right about. I deserved those fucking pictures, and I really needed to get my arm treated.

* * *

><p><strong>October 24th, 2181<strong>

**1:48AM, Citadel Time**

**Medical Clinic, Lower Wards**

I was lying on the table while a tired Dr. Michel gave some final treatments to my damaged arm. She did say that all the pain would be gone by morning, thank God for modern technologies. Normally I would have gone to sleep, but I had one more thing to attend to.

Paul entered first with everybody else following him.

"Hello every- What the fuck?" He asked, immediately switching from his awful Seananners impression.

"What happened to you?" Josh asked.

"I got shot, what the fuck does it look like?"

"Well, aside from that, is there any other reason why you called us here?" Phil asked.

_Here we go. _I looked at Dr. Michel. "Dr. is it okay to have a private talk with my friends."

"Yes, my work is done. I need to get some sleep anyways." She walked into a back room in the far corner of the clinic.

"So?" Paul asked.

"I'd go grab a cup of tea if I were you cause this may take a while."

* * *

><p><strong>30 Minutes Later<strong>

"And then I got back here and called you guys."

If it was anybody else, their jaws would have to be treated from hitting the ground to hard.

"Why didn't you just cure the wound with some vodka if you were Dima at the time?"

Then again, these weren't just "Anybody else". But boy do I sometimes wish they were.

"You're a dick Phil."

"So you weren't able to get anything from there since it was all fake?" Terran asked, kindly, unlike everybody else.

"There was one thing." I reached into my right pocket and pulled out six photos, leaving mine in the pocket. I lied them beside me on the bed table. My friends looked to find theirs.

"I was able to find those in one of the drawers the guy had. I suggest treating them like gold; they're all we have left of our past lives."

Everybody stared at their own family photos, even Phil didn't joke around. The silence was broken when my clock next to the bed rang to let me know I was allowed out of the clinic. This also snapped everybody out of there indulgence of the past. We exited out of the clinic.

"So you headed back?" Shea asked me.

"I'll catch up with you guys later."

They nodded and headed home. I starred at the amazing sights of Zakera. It was kind funny actually. I was already considering this place home, not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I still had a rage inside after finding out that whole thing with the chair and "Project" was complete bullshit, along with my talk with my mother. But it's not like I could go back and fix everything. I had to make do with what I had, and not give up, no matter how weak or insignificant I felt.

**Now Playing : Eminem - Till I Collapse**

_Sometimes you just feel tired. Feel weak, but when you feel weak, you feel like you wanna just give up._

_But you gotta search within you, got to find that inner strength and just pull that shit out of you._

_And get that motivation, to not give up and not be a quitter._

_No matter how badly you wanna just fall flat on your face._

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><p><strong>Authors Note : Not an easy chapter for me to write, but still enjoyed it. What happened here will have effects later on. Thanks again to my Mom for proof reading and thank you for reading, next case will be surrounding Christmas. Don't worry, I wont hammer on it since I hate holidays. After that it will be the last case and the ending of Mass Affect, PEACE.<strong>

**Shoutout : http:/www. fanfiction .net /s/7697343/1/In_a_Citadel_Darkly (Remove Spaces) When first read this story, it had no reviews. NONE! I don't know why cause so far it has been one of the better Fanfics I've read. It's got good characters and some really tense scenes. If you enjoyed my story then I think you will really like In A Citadel Darkly.**


	16. Chapter 14 : Christmas TV

**Chapter 14**

**December 25th, 2181**

**9:00AM, Citadel Time**

**C-Sec Academy**

There was one thing I was very clear about after my childhood. I. Fucking. Hate.

"Christmas!"

People like Ian that are taking the piss out on me the very second Paul told him about the local Grinch in the Detective's office AKA me. At least Garrus found the holiday as baffling as I did, though he was a completely different race.

"What's so special about Christmas anyways?" Garrus asked Ian.

""What's so special about Christmas?" Ian echoed in a mocking tone. "Christmas is the time of..."

"I can give you my version." I called out.

"Does it involve tons of profanity and personally biased hatred?" Garrus asked.

"Yes!" My friends yelled in unison.

"Ian, you first."

"Christmas is a time of happiness, joy, love, friendship and peace."

There was a long pause before Garrus said, "Okay, Lucas."

"Christmas is a time of brainwashed people with stupid hats going around to spend all their fucking money on shit they don't want or need that they could have bought for a cheaper price at any point of the year, but didn't because it's fucking Christmas."

"Man, talk about buzz kill." Ian muttered.

"Hey, it runs in the family."

"You mean to tell me that your parents disliked the holidays just as much as you?"

"Abso-fucking-lutely."

"Now you know why Lucas has no friends," Paul called out.

"Thanks for the support douche bag."

"Anytime."

"Don't you guys have work to do?" Pallin said, walking over to me with a datapad.

"Nope," We responded.

"Well now you do." He tossed me the datapad. "Get on it!"

I copied his information to my Omni-tool. Some sick son of a bitch had decided to give an average aged human a bit of death in the season of joy. I messaged Shea to meet me at a vehicle and we got on our way.

* * *

><p>The body was right in the middle of a public street near the Zakera markets, which explained the larger crowd.<p>

"What have we got Izan?"

"Nathan Croff; thirty eight year old Human male, plenty of convictions but hasn't done any real time due to lack of evidence. He's been caught working with the Drag Brothers."

"So an assassination by one of the other gangs?"

"Possibly, but what's odd is the shooter was wearing a Santa suit. Nobody could Identify his face and he left no prints behind. People heard the three shots and saw the guy take off."

"Talk about Ho, Ho, Ho," I muttered.

"Did anybody see where he was going?" Shea asked.

"Nope, he went behind a back alley. Lost track of him after that..." Izan was interrupted as our Omni-tools rang at the same time, the call was from an officer I didn't even know. He was broadcasting :

"Calling all available units. This is Officer Brian Fax; there's just been another shooting in the 400 blocks east of the markets. Witnesses spotted another killer with the same outfit as the Croff killer. Calling all available units. Please respond."

"Officer, this is Detective Lucas Raycevich. I'll be there in minute."

"_10-4."_

_*Disconnected*_

* * *

><p>We arrived to find a very similar sight to Croff's murder scene. Izan followed Shea and I to the crime. He knelt down to scan trying to get as much data on the person as possible. While it was scanning he found three bullet holes on the body, again. He turned to us when his Omni-tool beeped.<p>

"Varkxz Zillanz. Forty year old Turian male, old school gang member. He's been with Invictus since he was in adolescence."

"Seems like somebody is cleaning house." Shea said.

"No, there's no way it can be the same killer. It would have been impossible to get here from the markets on foot that quickly."

"So what we have another shooter dressed up as Santa shooting well connected gang members?" I asked.

"Unless the guy somehow had holographic roller blades, it's the only possibility."

"Holographic roller blades?" I asked curiously.

"I don't know, that was just off the top of my head."

"Clearly."

"So that's Invictus and the Drags. So that just leaves..." Shea got cut off.

"Hey detectives!" An officer called out. "There's been another at 300."

_Great. The Zion boss is going to be fucking pissed._

* * *

><p><strong>10:00AM, Citadel Time<strong>

**C-Sec Academy**

"A triple homicide?" Pallin said in his usual pissed off tone.

"In less than five minutes which suggests that there were three killers." I said.

"Three people dress up in those fat red outfits and take down three people all connected to the gangs on the Citadel? Did you get anything on the cameras?"

"Only small glimpses, we still don't know what the guy actually looked like and we don't see where he goes once he's out of sight."

Pallin just sighed. "What kinds of people would go this far?"

"I may be able to help with that."

I turned around and saw detective Chellick walk into Pallin's office, datapad in hand.

"There's a new group, formed about a month ago by three humans, but they're hiring any species from Asari to Elcor. So they're nothing like the Tenth Street Reds on Earth."

"Okay, but why would they arrive and suddenly take out key people?" Asked Shea.

"Don't take this the wrong way guys, but humans are known for being aggressive and ambitious. I don't think most people would have trouble believing that a gang formed by Humans would want to take over the criminal underworld."

Pallin muttered to himself but not loud enough for us to hear.

"Do you know where they are?" I asked.

"Way ahead of you. They're stationed on Zakera in the east blocks of the Ward."

"Bring them in. I want this out of the way ASAP," Ordered Pallin. Checllick was already calling the main desk for an arrest.

* * *

><p>It wasn't hard finding the three heads of the new gang called "Neptune". They were as professionalasthe name was original, which only gave me a bad feeling since they were our murder suspects. Sure they had the ability to murder but so did a couple hundred other people. I walked into the interrogation room with Shea and Chellick. Chellick said he wanted to come by since he hadn't had much experience with Neptune. The three human leaders looked up at us. On the left was Mark Kelso; average height, black hair, medium build. Typical average Joe except running a gang. In the middle was Ryan Nelson. He looked pretty similar to Mark, but a few years younger. Finally to the right was Ryan's girlfriend and Co-leader Sarah Esticato. Taller then her BF she had blond hair and looked like she could easily kick the shit out of Ryan. All of them looked like they were twenty somethings.<p>

"Looks like you three already have a bit of a reputation: smuggling, extortion, robbery and a whole other fence of charges," I said putting the datapad on the table to rest.

"Look if you're going through shit like this just to get a paycheck Detective, go after someone else," Mark said, irritated.

"Oh no it's okay, that kind of stuff is small fry. Besides, this is a homicide case."

"A homicide?" Ryan asked, dubious.

"Three people were killed this morning in less than five minutes all across Zakera. Each of them were highly ranked in the three main Citadel gangs and were taken down by three separate killers." Chellick said.

It took a good ten seconds before the three of them put two and two together.

"What, you think we did it?" Asked Sarah.

"You're a new gang on the Citadel, your safe house is in the radius of all three murders, you all own firearms and you all know how to use said fire arms. Ballistics is checking for matches right now."

"Things aren't exactly looking good for you three," Shea said.

"We didn't kill anyone!" Mark said. "We were at the safe house doing some work when we heard the shots go off."

"Is there anyone that can vouch for that?" I asked.

"Our friend came by our place."

"That doesn't rule you out. I'm sure any of your _employees_ would vouch that you were there."

"It wasn't us!" Sarah said.

"Then you better hope something comes up, because right now you're all on very thin ice," Shea said, rising. I noticed Mark shifting in his seat, but only on his right side.

"Something wrong Mr. Kelso?" I asked.

He hestitated, but Ryan and Sarah gave him a look saying "Go on". He lifted his right leg to the table and lifted the pants to his knee, showing off steel in place of a leg.

"There was an explosion outside a store in one of the markets a couple of years ago. One of the gangs or merc groups was trying to get protection money and the store owner refused. Next day there was an explosion while I was down there. I was nineteen. My parents were back on Terra Nova and I didn't have the money to get a cloned organ."

Before I was assumed Mark was being a bit of a prick just because he was one. I had to admit though, I'd be pretty pissed off too if I lost a leg, even more so if I couldn't get a new one. _Wait a minute._

"Do you have a limp in your step?" I asked Mark.

"Of course. That's one of the compromises you make when you get one of these instead of an cloned body part."

I walked quickly back to my desk passing a puzzled Shea. I opened up my terminal and had it display the footage we got of the three murders.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"If Mark was involved in the murders then one of the killers would have a slight limp visible."

I looked at all the footage. There was not a single odd movement on either leg. The person had the look of a professional.

"So if Mark wasn't in on this, we can safely assume Ryan and Sarah weren't either."

There was something else bugging me. The murderers all used the exact same gun and while they were hard to see with the Santa suits on, they still looked exactly the same. _Unless..._

"What if it was one guy?" I blurted out.

"What?"

"What if it was just one person trying to make it look like three to throw us off?"

"But the guy couldn't have gotten there on foot in time."

My brain was seeing the logic, but my gut was telling me something else.

"Lets go back to the Croff murder, see if we can find anything."

* * *

><p>"So what are we going to find that we don't already know?" Shea asked, annoyed.<p>

"I don't care about what happened when he shot the guy. I want to know what happened afterwards."

"I'm not sure I follow."

"We all know he goes into a back alleyway but we still don't know where he went after that." I looked around when I spotted the alleyway and moved towards it. We were greeted with a long straightaway that ended up leading to another end of the street, still way too far to get to the 400 blocks in two minutes.

"Come on, there's got to be something." I said rhetrocally. I looked everywhere. _Left, nothing. Right, nothing. Up, nothing...wait. _I saw an overhead catwalk.

"Hey, give me a boost up to that catwalk," I told Shea.

"Okay," He said, still dubious. Shea stood with his hands laced together. I walked forward quickly and put my right foot on them. I got it first try and my hands reached the edge of the catwalk easily. I swung my legs to the edge and rolled.

"You good?" He asked as I stood up.

"Yeah I'm fine. I'm going to run to the second crime scene. If I get there in less than two minutes then we know we're looking for one killer."

"Alright, I'll meet you there." Shea jogged away from the alley while I did the same on the catwalk activating my stop watch. With 01:45 on the clock I could see the scene from the catwalk. I hopped down and within another fifteen seconds I was there. I waited for Shea to arrive nearly two minutes later.

"What took you so long?" I joked.

"Oh you're a fucking comedian." He said. "Been here a while?"

"Got here in just under two minutes at a steady pace. Meaning that when our killer arrived it took him a few seconds to find the target."

"So we can rule out the guy being an amateur."

"Definitely."

"So we can rule out Neptune's goons and we can rule out the leaders because the killer didn't limp like Mark."

"And the killer had knowledge of everybody's location."

* * *

><p>We went back to the academy to tell the Executor the news. To my surprise, he told me to come over to his office. Shea got on the phone to further investigate. I walked in to the usual sight of Pallin behind his desk.<p>

"What's this about Sir?"

"Have a seat." I complied and sat down.

"There was a case I worked on exactly ten years ago, back when I was still a detective. Everything just like it is now. Holiday costumes, human celebration, three dead gang members, supposedly three killers."

"What happened?"

"The Executor at the time wanted the case done so C-Sec could get good press by catching the killers on a very important day for Humans. So a new gang at the time got blamed and spent the rest of their days locked up. However there was one lead I was going on, but the Executor closed the case before I could get anywhere."

_Gee, does that sound familiar?_

He took a datapad and handed it to me. I looked at the info; he was trying to pin it on...

"The Blue Suns. Why them?"

"They've made a deal with all the gangs. As long as they buy all their weapons and other equipment from them, they leave them alone. If they don't well...Self explanatory. This time they got clever. The new group didn't want any part of the Suns. So just when all gangs were making big deals, they killed them off and pinned it on the new start-up. The gangs naturally got pissed off at the start up and planned to take them down, but to do that they needed to buy more stuff from the Suns."

_Son of a bitch. _"The gangs feel they got payback while the Suns get a free tax break from playing them."

"Precisely."

"You still have the Neptune heads locked up right?"

"Yes."

"Good. I need to see them right now."

* * *

><p>I hate to agree with my boss but he was right. This was a repeating case. Neptune didn't accept any deals with the Suns. But rather than just wipe out the gang they would pin three murders on them for extra money. After all, it's not like the Blue Suns actually gave a shit about the gangs. I saw Bjorn and Josh come up to our desks snapping me out of my thoughts.<p>

"What's up guys? I thought you were working an Ad Vice case."

"We are, but we got some information that might help you," Josh said. "We talked to our buddy "The Boss" at the Zion base. Invictus and The Drags were making deals this morning that were almost in the millions. As a result the two gangs are very pissed off and are probably going to start a war against Neptune very soon."

"Shit!" Shea said, slamming his head on the desk.

"What did Zion say about them?" I asked.

"They said their guy was just out for a walk when the murderer attacked."

"Right."

"Don't you guys have a new lead involving the Blue Suns though?" Bjorn asked.

"Yeah, our only problems being that we still don't know who the murderer is and our theory is almost impossible to prove." Shea said.

"Unless you get the order report from the Blue Suns," Josh said.

"But it's not like I can just go up to them and ask politely, and if I get a warrant they're just going to get rid of the report claiming it doesn't exist."

"So what if you just got it without a warrant?"

"Well I..." _You know that's actually a good point. Pallin will get pissed yeah but, I already told him I'd do it again if I had to. _

"Thanks guys." I got up and walked straight to Terran's desk, Shea following me.

"Hey Terran."

"Yo, what's up?"

"You busy?"

"Nope."

"Good. I need you to get check out any Blue Suns reports from the past few days."

"Do you have a warrant?"

"Nope cause it will take too long and they'll just delete it. So I need you to hack into their systems and retrieve it undetected."

"You do know I'm going to take a lot of shit if I do that right?"

"If you do, I'll tell the Pallin that I ordered you to."

He hesitated, then suddenly started typing lightning fast on his Holographic keyboard. Shea and I watched hoping in vain Pallin didn't come out of his office. Terran was already in the Blue Suns network, his typing came to a halt as the screen showed a progress bar that was retrieving recent reports. The corners of his screen started to flash red indicating that the system found his bug and was searching for it. The progress bar was moving to the right. His terminal was going to be caught in fifteen seconds unless he exited, which would mean abandoning the system and losing the files. Terran's hand hovered over the backspace key as our eyes were frantically switching from the progress bar to the timer. It beeped when it got to five seconds.

*Beep*

_Come on, almost there._

*Beep*

"Terran," Shea said.

*Beep*

"Come on!" Terran hissed.

*Beep*

*Data transfer complete*

We all let out a huge sigh of relief as Terran went to open the files.

"I wasn't scared," He said trying to shrug it off.

He typed in a few key words to make the search faster since there was a lot of data. After a good twenty seconds we finally came across it. Date created was December 21st and scrolling through it contained information on the the whole operation. The the order went to a Max Venturi, lethal force allowed.

"Gotcha."

* * *

><p>The data proved the Blue Suns were responsible, but the gangs still didn't know it was them and they were going to go after Neptune any minute. I couldn't tell Pallin without him wanting to go through all the red tape bullshit. I'd also probably get fired. So instead Shea, Chellick and myself discussed the situation at the shooting range.<p>

"So you got the file?" Chellick asked me.

"Yeah, but I can't do much with it. At least not fast enough to end this before the gangs go after Neptune."

"So we're screwed then?"

I looked at Shea and he gave a nod.

"Not exactly."

Chellick stopped firing and gave me a look.

"I've got a plan."

"I'm listening."

"Our killer is with the Blue Suns and is on the Citadel. That means he's probably at the main Blue Suns base. That's also where they will be keeping the person who ordered him to do the job in the first place and the original place of the file proving the Suns were behind it. So we bust in there, take down our killer as well as our leader, and then leave the file on the main terminal where the investigation teams will find it."

"There's just one problem. How are we going to do something like that when we look like cops? The media would be all over C-Sec as well as the Council, and Pallin will be enraged to."

"Who said anything about going in there looking like cops?"

* * *

><p><strong>Blue Suns HQ, Zakera Ward<strong>

**2:00PM, Citadel Time**

It was a good thing Chellick wasn't a strict by-the-book officer. Because we now stood outside the Blue Suns HQ with a platoon of Zion members. Their bosses respect for the feds went a lot farther than one would expect.

We walked up to the group. Chellick asked who was in charge. We were greeted by a tall, bald, middle aged Human. Chellick smiled.

"Robert Bane, long time no see." He shook hands with the Human.

"Always a pleasure Detective. These the two that came up with our joint operation?" He said looking at Shea and I.

"Detective Raycevich." We shook hands. "This is my partner, Shea Stone."

"Good to meet you two. Now you're not going to get away with this in those." He gestured to our coats with C-Sec badges on. "So I took the liberty of getting these." He took out what appeared to be a coat. It was actually a piece of light weight armor. It had a big Z and was in the gangs colors of Black, White and Red. I put it on to find that it was not that heavy and had built-in shields, which along with my Kinetic Barrier belt, would protect me from multiple shots. Bane gestured to one of the storage areas of their Shuttle where they kept weapons, revealing the last two in the set, Volkov sniper rifle and an Avenger assault rifle.

"So which one do you..." Shea asked but I'd already picked up the sniper. He sighed and took the Avenger.

We took five minutes with Zion to come up with a quick plan. In truth we didn't care what Zion did to the Suns, we just cared about getting the murderer and the man responsible for the order. We were going to let Zion assault the main hallways and building entrances, while we kept to the side lines.

Everybody was ready to go on my mark. I crouched behind a wall outside the HQ. I steadied the barrel of my rifle on the edge as I looked for the best target to start with. The alarms were going to go off no matter what, so I went with the most shocking. I saw a Turian standing right in the middle of courtyard. I lined up the shot and pulled the trigger. The head didn't explode into a thousand pieces like in the movies, but it still put enough fear into the surrounding troops to allow the Zion's to take down four guards before the Suns could process what was going on. Chellick was the one with military experience so he was leading as Shea and I covered him.

With the front of the base cleared we headed inside, greeted by the deafening sounds of hundreds of rounds from both forces. The leader on the top floor was probably less than pleased. While Zion and the Suns were having at each other, we went right and found a staircase. There were no guards, the only sound was the muffled chaos below. I had the sniper holstered on my back and got out my trusty P99 as Chellick took point with his assault rifle. We were on the third set of stairs, still no one in sight. The building had old fashioned doors. Chellick crouched, moving slowly. Right in the path of the door, it suddenly slammed open, knocking him to the floor. A helmeted human came in to finish him off when Shea put five rounds into the guy's chest, the enemy's shields were useless at this range. Chellick got up as Shea crouched. I stood with my pistol also fixed on the corridor. Another Turian came in sight to be showered in rounds by our weapons. He went down and Chellick took point again.

I looked over the edge of the railing, battles raging below. The Suns were pushed to the back of the building but still putting up a good fight. I saw around four of Zion's troops laying motionless across the floor. It was then that some of the survivors guilt kicked in, it was my idea after all. I knew they signed up for it, but it didn't make me feel any better. My thoughts were interrupted when Chellick yelled loudly and clearly.

"Get down!"

I collapsed to the floor, at first complaining about the pain from my chest but not truly caring when my ears registered the whizzing sound going over me into the wall behind, another hole getting added the the insurance bill.

"Do you know where he is?" I yelled.

"Not a fucking clue, just that he's on the other side!" Shea responded.

There are many things in life to complain about when you're the victim, snipers can easily be put at the top of that list. I looked around frantically, searching for anything that could help. I spotted the Blue Suns human that we took out. I began crawling over to it, staying under the railing. I stopped for a second when I heard another shot go off, but it was directed at Chellick.

"He's on the third floor just like us! Right side!" He yelled.

I kept crawling until I reached the body. I got it's leg and dragged it along with me. It wasn't the most dignified sight with an eighteen year old crawling while dragging a blood covered body marking it's path on the floor by covering it in red stains, but that was hardly my greatest concern. I finally reached Shea as he was giving me a look saying "What the fuck are you doing?" I took the helmet off the human and leaned it against the wall.

"On my mark you are going to stick the head of the body over the railing. I'll take the sniper down once he takes the bait. Got it?"

"Got it!"

I moved to the left. I took the sniper off my back and had my two hands underneath it. I looked at Shea and gave a nod. Chellick was a bit farther to right, watching closely. Shea raised the head over the railing. The bullet propelled the body to the floor. I instantly got up and saw the shooter. I pulled the trigger, the wall behind him printed with his body's blood. I dropped down to the ground, just in case. But nothing happened. I let out a breath I knew I was holding and started to calm down. Chellick got up and reminded me that we still had a job to do. There was only one more floor to go where we would find the son of a bitch in charge.

We easily took down three guards at the top of the staircase. Entering the only remaining big room left, we found about ten guards.

_Shit._

We immediately ducked behind a wall, the other side was getting hammered in rounds. It didn't matter how many rounds my shields could take, there was no way I was going to be able to go against ten other guards like in a game. The two next to me, well maybe not Chellick, but Shea was having the same thoughts. The gun fire went on and on when suddenly it stopped. I peeked around to be sure they weren't toying with us but instead we were greeted by Robert Bane and twelve other troops standing over a squad of dead mercs. We got up to thank him but there was one big issue. All the Blue Suns in the room were regular troops.

I looked around frantically for anything when I saw a terminal in the far right middle of the room. It contained the same bunch of files Terran picked up back at the Academy. However there was one big file in the middle of the screen. The Blue Suns' leader left a message: "Close, but no cigar." along with a picture of his ship leaving the Citadel.

Chellick cursed and slammed his fists on the desk, I closed the message and left the terminal open and ready for the feds to find the report that started this mess.

* * *

><p><strong>3:20PM, Citadel Time<strong>

**C-Sec Academy**

We were just in time. As we left the building Invictus and the Drags were heading out to the Neptune's base. However, Zion sent the report file from the Blue Suns' terminal to the gangs and C-Sec. Pallin came to us with the news but I could tell that he guessed we were involved. But since he never ordered me back to the office demanding my badge, I think he was okay with letting me off the hook. If we hadn't done anything everybody at the Neptune base would be dead. One thing was for sure; the gangs weren't going to be buying anything from the Blue Suns for quite sometime. Though I was still pissed off the leader got away. On the plus side, Max Venturi turned up dead at the building, on the right side of the third floor.

I was at my desk when Ian turned up.

"Hey, you got anything planned?"

"No not really. I'm just finishing up paperwork. Why do you ask?"

"Uh, cause it's Christmas and friends and family are supposed to get together?"

"Except I don't celebrate it so I don't really care."

"Oh come on Lucas it will be fun," Garrus said.

"How the hell did you convince him?" I asked Ian.

"Cause it's Christmas!" Rebecca said.

"Okay, you I expected."

"Reekris!"

"Phil shut up!"

"But it's Christmas!"

"Christmas!"

"Christmas!

"Christmas!"

_Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!_

I woke up to the sound of ringing. Looking around finding myself at my desk with nobody coming around to bug me. _Oh thank god I don't believe in that was just a dream. _I looked at my ringing Omni-tool and opened up the message.

To : Lucas Raycevich

See me in my office, ASAP.

Executor Pallin

_Oh Shit._

**Now Playing : Slow Club - Christmas TV**

* * *

><p><strong>Authors Note: Sorry for taking a while to get this chapter out, it was one of my longer ones and my mother was sick so beta reading took longer than normal. I like the way it turned out though. I'm excited to say that I'm working on the final case and I'll be trying to make it in a four part format so chapters won't take forever to get out. I'll try my best to end it well, but note that it won't be the end of MA. I hope you enjoyed the chapter and thanks for reading, PEACE.<strong>

**Shoutout : http:/www. fanfiction .net /s/7800531/1/ Fleet_and_Flotilla (Remove Spaces) The same person behind Welcome to Mass Effect? Aw Crap! made a prologue for Fleet and Flotilla and it is really well done. I'm not sure if the story will get any more chapters but you should check out the introduction regardless.**


	17. Chapter 15 Part 1 : Finale

**Chapter 15 (Part 1 of 4)**

**March 12th, 2182**

**1:00PM, Citadel Time**

**Factory District, Zakera Ward**

**Lucas' POV**

It had been just over a year since my friends and I got dropped off onto the Citadel and I joined C-Sec. Unfortunately the new year started with a terrorist attack that killed four thousand people. C-Sec as well as the council were investigating, but whoever was behind the attack left nothing for us to find except a bunch of corpses. The bomb inside an office tower block in Zakera released a toxin killing everybody inside, except for the people that jumped out of the building. C-Sec convened two task forces, one with Turians, the other with humans. Pallin claimed he wanted to avoid any confrontations. I rarely had problems with the Turian detectives except for one or two extremists. Regardless, my friends and I joined. Ian and Garrus didn't want to be on different sides so they stuck with their regular work and Terran remained the main hacker for both teams. It had been a few months and our group still hadn't found anything. We had hit sights where Intel suggested there was another bomb but they both came up empty.

Today had produced another lead indicating there was a bomb in the factory district. The old saying "Third time's the charm" wasn't what I was feeling the moment I heard they said it was in the Factory District. The first bomb had been in a public office building; why would they go from killing innocent civilians to destroying a factory for a company that would just build a new one? Turned out to be right, like I expected.

"We didn't find shit," I told Bailey who had checked the factory next door.

"Neither did we, looks like it's just another dead end."

"Which we should have called in the first place."

"We got a tip saying there was a weapon here and we came down to check it out. Just doing our job."

"Yeah but, Bailey, this is the third straight time. Now I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy nut but something is very wrong with this picture."

Bailey sighed, but it seemed more in agreement. "I'll send Pallin the report. In the meantime head back to the station."

I nodded and headed toward the group of police cruisers, with my friends hanging around.

"I'm guessing your group didn't find anything?" Shea asked.

"Nope, you?"

"Not in a thousand years."

"I'm honestly just thinking about quiting this task force." Phil said. "All we've done for the past two months is paper work or digging up invisible bombs."

"And we'll probably keep doing that for the next two months." I added. I was going to continue ranting with the others when I spotted somebody off in the distance. Buzzcut hair, middle-aged, loud and proud blue Alliance Uniform.

"Uh guys; what is Captain Anderson doing here?" I asked to no one in particular.

They equally confused. Phil was about to say something when Anderson pointed at me and waved. _Uh, what? _I pointed a finger at myself with a face saying "Me?". He nodded in response. Still confused, I walk towards the soon-to-be Councilor (At least I hope).

"Detective?" He asked.

"Yeah?"

"Captain David Anderson, Systems Alliance," he said holding his hand out.

"Detective Lucas Raycevich." I returned the gesture.

"I know, I've read your file. You're on the C-Sec's task force right?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"You're wasting your time at this site."

"We kind of gained that much after looking Captain."

"No, not like that. The Alliance has also been investigating this case, mostly due to the weapon used. We searched this place six weeks ago."

"You're kidding right?"

"I do not kid, Detective. Listen. We acknowledged a while ago that this is not adding up. I'm working on this at the Human Embassy on the Presidium. When you're off work, meet me there," he said handing me a holographic card display. I took it despite knowing the location. He left while I got back to the Police Cruisers and headed back to the station.

* * *

><p>I stormed out of the elevator and headed to Pallin's office. The Executor was behind his desk pilling up some datapads. He looked at me knowingly.<p>

"Yes Detective?"

"Sir, we need to talk."

"Now is not a good time." He started to head out but gestured for me to follow.

"Well we need to find some. The Intel we've got is fucked forty ways from Sunday."

"That's not your only problem."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"A Turian from the embassy _Raz Victus_, is coming down to lead both teams."

"Why?"

"Because they think the Humans aren't doing a good job."

"What? That's bullshit! If the Turian group got the same Intel we did they'd be in the exact same hole."

"I understand, but you have to keep this quiet right now."

"Why?"

"Because of politics. Now I need to get this meeting." He walked away. I returned to my desk when I saw a new Turian in the Detective's office. He stood tall in his white face markings and politician's suit. He didn't bat an eye and went to the briefing room. _I guess that's Raz. Well all I have to say at a first glance is, douche bag. _I began filling another report, adding another datapad to the stack on my desk.

"I'm going to get some lunch, you guys want anything?" I asked Bjorn and Josh.

"No thanks, we're good," Bjorn said.

* * *

><p><strong>Bjorn's POV<strong>

Lucas nodded and headed out the door. Meanwhile I got back to thinking about this Raz guy. Officially he was here because our group wasn't finding anything, then again I highly doubted they would send a Human from the embassy if it was the other way around. I opened up my computer to do some research, typing in the name Raz Victus. The name came up with a bunch of results and I started to read through some of them. However, his name did not appear on any articles older than late April. Forty five minutes later I was still forging when...

"Detective Vollmer?"

I looked up and speak of the devil, Raz stood before me.

"Yes?"

"As I'm sure you've heard, I'm going to be running both teams. So I call the shots from here on out, clear?"

"Crystal," Said Josh.

"Now, we recently got a tip about an abandoned head quarters containing details on the attackers. I need to go and investigate."

I looked at Josh, equally puzzled. "No back up?" I asked.

"You've already got Josh with you and most of the other people in your unit are busy. Besides with the trend right now it's probably nothing anyways."

"Why haven't we got these reports from Pallin?"

"Because I'm your new boss and these things now go through me. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got other orders to give out."

Josh and I slowly got out of our chairs and headed towards the police cruiser outside.

* * *

><p>"I'm not one to normally say this but, I've got a bad feeling."<p>

"That makes two of us." Josh Replied. "But I don't feel like getting fired over it."

Neither did I, but it didn't make me feel confidant about the task at hand. The cruiser landed and we got out to find the building in question. Brown, boring, industrial and empty.

"Okay, I've really got a bad feeling about this." I said.

"What are you taking about? This place looks completely safe." Josh's sarcasm was thick enough to cut with a bayonet.

Josh was typing something into his Omni-tool and we approached the door very slowly. Josh stood a few feet behind me as I was right in front of the door, my hand hovering over the holographic switch. I made my feet ready to run and Josh gave me one final nod. Before I could change my mind, I pressed the switch and felt the whoosh of the door opening. Inside it was empty. The silence was more than unnerving. I looked at Josh as we released our breaths.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered as I went inside.

*Beep*

_Oh shit._

"Go!" I yelled as we ran the opposite way. I felt my body being lifted off the ground, I went flying forward before crashing into the ground. I heard a tiny sound before I felt myself falling into the realm of the unconscious. _Figures this would happen almost to the day it happened at Lucas' house._

* * *

><p>I felt myself starting to wake up. The surface under me didn't feel like hard alien flooring. I opened my eyes, then closed them again due to the brightness. I moved my arm in front to block it when I heard some voices come from the right.<p>

"Rebecca, he's waking up." I turned to see Phil, Paul, Shea and Terran in what looked like C-Secs Medical Bay. I didn't have anything hooked up so I hoisted myself up on my elbows.

"Uh, how long was I out?" I asked, rubbing my burning eyes.

"Only for about half an hour," Paul said.

"You took some damage on your arm and chest but it wasn't anything Medi-Gel couldn't fix. If anything I'd say your ears took the most damage, but I was able to fix that while you were out." Rebecca said.

"How did you guys find us?"

"Josh sent out a message with his location on it. We found you two lying on the ground right next to a burned down building." Shea said.

I looked to my left to see Josh lying on the other bed, still unconscious. Seeing the five people though did remind me.

"Where's Lucas?"

"I think he went to have friendly chat with Raz." Phil said dryly.

* * *

><p><strong>Lucas POV<strong>

I walked from the Medical Bay, one destination in mind. I found a panel next to a door that said "Raz Victus" and slammed my fist into the Holographic switch as if it made any difference. I walked in to find the bastard standing next to a shelf in the room acting as calm as ever.

"Ah, Detective. I was just about to ask you to..."

I grabbed his head and slammed it into his desk like an Axe into a chunk of wood. I used my left hand to keep his head still as I punched his head with my right repeatedly. It hurt like a hell but I wasn't feeling any pain. Partially due to the adrenaline, but mostly due to my rage. I kept clubbing him until I felt two arms grab me and pulled me away. I grabbed the Turian's neck to drag him with me, but I felt my hand get pulled off it.

"Fucking piece of shit!" I exclaimed. Grasping his head, I could easily see some of his face markings replaced with bruises.

"You sent them there! You, sent my friends out there to die you motherfucker!"

"They went there on their own, tracking down a lead."

"That's a fucking lie!"

"You can't accept that they went there on their own can you? Like all humans, you just want someone to blame."

"Fuck you asshole! You won't ever be..."

"Shut up!"

I looked to my right to see Pallin enter the room.

"Lucas take a leave of absence."

"What!"

"I can't have you going around being reckless like this. Pull yourself together and don't come back until you do."

I sighed heavily and shoved off the two arms holding me.

"Fine," I said. I took one extra step forward towards Raz. "But you are fucking finished." I said to him before turning to leave. I took the elevator up to the Presidium and walked past the lake. Normally I would be awing over how amazing it looks compared to the game, but that's not what was on my mind. I kept going until I got to the Embassy's receptionist.

"What can I do for you Sir?"

"I need to see Captain Anderson; it's urgent."

"Your name?"

"Detec... Lucas Raycevich."

She allowed me access and I went up to find the Captain near the deck overlooking the Presidium. Sitting at his desk was Ambassador Udina AKA a total prick.

"Ah, Detective. What brings you here so soon?" Asked the Captain.

"Our new leader Raz Victus set a trap for two of my friends," I said. "They barely made it out of there. Of course I got the fair response of getting an L.O.A."

"I suspected that much. We got news about C-Sec's newest addition. Frankly I don't have much hope in him."

"Tell me about it, oh and it's uh, just Lucas as of now."

"Speaking of which, this is Ambassador Udina," Said the Captain.

"A good day to you Detective." He shook my hand.

"Thanks, but I'm not really having the best day so far. I don't mean to be rude Captain but why did you tell me to come see you?" Udina seemed surprised by my forwardness but I'm sure that's because he was used to talking to politicians rather than citizens.

"As you know the Alliance is also investigating the terrorist attack. However we have a new one planned that we need to keep quiet as of now. Raz doesn't like it when people figure this out but, there's no mention of him anywhere before April of last year. We looked at your friends search history, they were figuring out the same thing. It could be the reason why they were sent to that trap."

"Wait, hold on a second. Bjorn found that information in thirty minutes. How the hell would Raz be able to set up a trap that quickly?"

"He's only a few steps below your Executor, which means he has access to that kind of information. The unnerving part however is that we suspect he might have a bunch of corrupt officers following him. He didn't get the position at C-Sec by random after all."

"So let me get this straight. You're saying he might have something to do with all of this? And the Alliance wants to do an investigation into him?"

"Essentially, yes," Udina said.

"Okay, so why are you telling me this?"

The Captain looked at Udina who gave him an approving nod. Anderson went to the back to grab a big case emblazoned with a Alliance symbol and set it on the desk.

"If you agree, you could be a temporary Alliance Special Investigator. You wouldn't be able to have free reign like a Spectre but considering you're gone from C-Sec currently it's better than nothing. Want in?" The captain said.

_Me? In the Alliance. Jesus Christ. _At first I thought it was ridiculous but when I started to think about it more, it actually seemed like a good opportunity.

"Okay, I'm in."

"Good, now open that case."

Unlocking the hinges I opened it up.

"Whoa!" Inside was an SM-20 rifle, a light armored vest with built-in shields and a Magnetic weapon holder on the back. In the bottom was a badge with the Alliance logo and A.S.I. underneath with the full title just below it. I equipped everything, got a "Good luck" from the Captain and Ambassador and headed out the door.

_Let's catch this bitch._

* * *

><p><strong>Authors Note : Here we go, the finally of the series. I was going to make this one long mega chapter but, that would take way too long to write and way too long to proof read. So instead I just made this a four parter. I hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading, PEACE.<strong>

**P.S. The SM-20 is a made up assault rifle by on Deviant art, if you want to check it out the link is here : http:/zxcv1911 . deviantart .com/art/ New-Mass-Effect-Assault-Rifle-215023571?q=favby%3Acuhnadian%2F46756447&qo=1 (Remove Spaces)**


	18. Chapter 15 Part 2 : Finale

**Reko-Luna : This story will get to the events of ME1 at some point, but that's not going to happen for a long time. I've got a sequel planned, but it will take place in the year before ME1.  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 15 Part 2 of 4<strong>

**March 14th, 2182**

**1:00 PM, Citadel Time**

**Embassy's, Presidium**

I walked out of the office feeling strange with a Assault rifle on my back with body armor. Walking around like Matt Damon in Green Zone was likely to draw attention though, so they gave me a black coat to conceal both. I was about to head back to the Academy when I when saw someone walk beside me.

"Not many civilians come out of the Human Embassy," A female voice said suddenly.

I looked to my left, annoyed and relived at the same time.

"Emi..."

"Emily Wong, Citadel News Net. I know," I said.

Good thing it was one of the few news anchors I could stand. If Al-Jilani showed up, Ian wouldn't be the only one fortunate enough to be able to damage her face.

"So what are you coming out of the Human Embassy for?" She asked.

"You know I can't tell you that."

"Does this have something to do with the bombing investigation?"

"What do you think?" I stopped and asked.

"I've been doing this job for two years. I know how to put two and two together."

"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you Emily. But I won't be able to help you with that right now." I turned to leave but she stopped me.

"Wait! If this is about what I think it is, and I'm pretty sure it is, then give me a call," She handed me a card with the information. By the time I looked away from the card she was already on her way. I didn't know what to think, so I just shrugged and made my way back to the Academy.

* * *

><p>I stepped out of the elevator and headed to the Detectives Section. Unsurprisingly I was stopped by a guard at the door.<p>

"Sir, you are off..."

"Duty, yes I know. I'm disavowed, not deaf and dumb. I'm just here to get some things from my desk."

The guard seemed to buy my excuse and gave me five minutes. I headed into the familiar atmosphere of desks, ringing Omni-tools and frustrated detectives. I grabbed a few items from my desk in case any cameras were watching when I saw Ian a few feet away.

"I thought you were off duty," He said.

"I am, just grabbing a few things. And I got a new job." I flashed my A.S.I. Alliance badge knowing the cameras couldn't see it. Ian raised his eyebrows but quickly settled down again. He knew what I was doing.

"Can't get away from this case huh?"

"That's one way of putting it." I looked around before whispering. "Could do me a favor?"

"Of course."

"I need you to keep an eye on Raz. Where he's been, what he uses, what's in his office. Anything that seems off, let me know."

I got a nod in return. "I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks."

I got out before the guard or Raz bitched at me to leave. I was back in the elevator when I my Omni-tool started to ring, however the caller ID was Unknown. Gingerly, I hit "Answer".

"Yes?"

"Lucas Raycevich. This is Robert Bane."

"Robert?" I said, cautiously relieved. "Why would you be calling me?"

"We've heard about what happened at C-Sec. And the Boss can help you. Come around our Hideout in thirty minutes, make sure you're not followed."

*Disconnected*

* * *

><p>After that creepy exchange I made my way to the Hideout at Bachjert Ward. Despite being there many times the guards still insisted on checking my weapons and contacting the Boss upstairs before I could enter. I stepped into the sight I became used to. Dark room, 1960's chairs, the Boss in the big 1960's chair with some cigs and oh almost forgot, four people with fully automatic assault rifles. I never did forgive them for pointing them at me last year.<p>

"Let me guess, never can be too careful?" I asked.

"Of course. Have a seat." I complied.

"Can I offer you anything or do you just want to cut to the chase?"

"What do you think?"

"Cut to the chase it is then." The Boss took another long exhale of his smoke. "Your new C-Sec head is Raz Victus correct?" I nodded.

"Well, I've encountered him before. About a year ago when we were doing deals with some of the merc groups. He was a part of the Blue Suns, the man in charge of his little squad.

"Okay, so how does that help me?"

"There was one main thing that stood out when I saw him now. His name Raz Victus is an alias."

"What? What's his real name then?"

"Hanz Klerx."

My mind went back to the only other time I'd heard that surname before. The Alex Goldberg murder.

* * *

><p>"<em>Von Klerx," I called out interrupting his speech.<br>_

"_Excuse me, I'm in the middle of a speech. Go take a seat or I'll have C-Sec drag you out."_

"_I am C-Sec so I don't think that will be happening," I said holding my badge and walking closer._

"_Can we do this later?"_

"_I don't have much patience for criminals,"_

"_What, I, are you accusing me?"_

"_I'm charging you with Blackmail, Conspiracy and the murder of Alex Goldberg."_

* * *

><p>"That's means he's..." I said, trailing off, looking at the ground.<p>

"Precisely. He's Von Klerx's son. The name Klerx was ruined forever due to the arrest of his father. But I'm guessing he still wanted revenge. So he used his leadership skills to get where he is now, under the name Raz Victus."

"Son of a bitch."

"Indeed. But that's not all that I wanted to tell you."

I looked up to him.

"I always keep track of people I've dealt with. In this kind of business you got to watch your back. I managed to find out that he has an apartment in Zakera, in the 600 blocks." He took out a datapad and a round object.

"What's that?"

He smirked. "That's an auto-hacker. Very expensive and very illegal. But uh, you didn't see anything."

* * *

><p>I didn't care that the device was expensive or illegal. It got me into one of Raz's many apartments within seconds. I was tempted to get Lia, but I doubt the person at the reception desk would allow the Quarian inside. I liked to think of the Quarians as the Muslims of the universe. They get pulled aside, interrogated and sometimes beaten up because they are "Beggars and Thieves". In my whole year at C-Sec I never arrested one.<p>

Anyway, I entered a typical apartment space. Flooded with some kind of weird metal-like material that Turians favored. I skipped past the kitchen and entertainment rooms to head for the bed room and office space. Hoping I could gather something about Raz's plans. After ten minutes of opening and shutting drawers I found a Datapad with a conversation log in his main desk. Raz's correspondent was blanked out. Something strange was mentioned when I read it. "Project Izus." I had no idea what it was, but I didn't think it was a free coupon to Azure. Not that I could prove otherwise, the information was encrypted so I couldn't copy it and even if I showed it to the rest of C-Sec Raz could just dismiss it as me making shit up. I entered Project Izus into my Omni-tool to remember the name.

Not finding anything else worthy, I made my way to the door to leave, but I found it closed and the hologram was red. I took out my Auto-hacker again to find out that it wasn't like an Omni-tool. It worked depending on how much energy it had, which was now non existent. _Okay, I'm in a Politicians house with a locked door and my only ways out are jumping out the window of a 50 story building or using my horrible tech skills to get it open and alert all of Security. Fuck me sideways._

I sighed and opened my Omni-tool, got out my hacker program and got ready for the inevitable.

_3, 2, 1..._

Not surprisingly the apartment erupted into alarms that made my ears bleed. I rushed out the door. Ignoring the slow-ass elevators I made my way to the stairs. At the bottom I could hear the guards yelling. I peeked below and saw three of them. When I reached the tenth floor I hid behind the door leading to a hallway. As soon as I heard footsteps pass by I headed back to the stairs again. I reached the bottom and broke out into a full on sprint. Before the desk clerk could do anything I was out of there. I disappeared into a large crowed of people, slowing down any more guards in pursuit. To shake them off completely I exited into a back alley. A stack of creates led to a catwalk above. I had explored them more after the Christmas case. I heard the wails of sirens coming from the streets but C-Sec still had no chance of figuring out it was me before I was long gone.

* * *

><p><strong>Ian's POV<strong>

With no murder investigation on my hands I was in the mess hall as Garrus sorted through paper work. Rebecca was needed by her boss, Bailey and Chellick were in their task forces, Izan and Johan were on duty and Lucas was out causing a stir...

*Ring*

_Call incoming : Lucas R._

_Speak of the devil._

I answered, activating my Omni-tool.

"I didn't realize breaking into asshole's houses was part of joining the Alliance." I retorted.

"If it was I would have joined a lot sooner." Lucas responded, breathing heavier than normal. "Did you find out anything about Raz?"

"Nothing other than he seems to despise every human here, so either he was part of the First Contact War or he's just a prick."

"Probably the latter. He wouldn't be old enough to be in the First Contact. He's Von Klerx's son."

"What?"

"Yeah. I'll explain later, short version is he's got something planned. I don't know what but it's called Project Izus. Now are you sure you didn't notice anything about him?"

"No not really."

"What about his office?"

_Actually. _"Garrus did say he saw what looked like a safe at the back of the office."

"Then I need to get to it."

"I don't think you're just going to be able to ask him politely mate."

"Which is why I'm going to need your help, along with my buddies." _Oh Canadians and their buddies. _"Are you in or are you out?"

_On the one hand I was going to help a fugitive break into his work place to steal something from the person after him. On the other hand, it's not like I've got anything else to to do. _"Okay, what do you need me to do?"

* * *

><p><strong>Raz's POV<strong>

_Can't believe this! I fire the little brat thinking that would be enough, but no he has to have an angstgasm and break into my damn apartment like a..._

"Sir, you're going to want to see this." Illo interrupted my thoughts. I followed the loyal Turian as he lead me to a closed off room with two more of my people. I looked at the tech guy indicating him to speak.

"So, on a hunch I looked to see if Lucas had contacted anybody after he left the apartment. He called Ian Shaw."

"Do we have a recording?" I asked.

"No, but they exchanged some text messages and I was able to get a hold of some of the conversation. Lucas said to meet him at Nillace Park in Tayseri Ward. Ian and Garrus just left a few minutes ago."

"Should we stop them Sir?" Illo asked.

"No that's stupid. Send some of our units to follow Ian and Garrus. I'll be in the Communications room watching."

"Yes Sir."

Ten minutes later we got our local agents on an overhead bridge to track Ian and Garrus. It wouldn't be that hard to track Lucas once he showed up.

"This is Magna Three, we're in position."

I looked at the screen to see the other first person camera open to show an east side view of the park.

"Copy that Magna Three, Magna Four are you in position?"

"Affirmative, we just arrived."

"Still no sign of Raycevich?"

"That's a no go Magna One."

You'd think being a fugitive would have encouraged him to get moving to...

*Ring*

I looked around to figure out where the sound was coming from. I saw my Omni-tool flashing with a call. That's not what worried me though.

_Call incoming : Lucas R._

The techies seemed to be wondering why I wasn't answering. I gestured everyone to shut up and answered the call but also hit speaker.

"Raz Victus," I said.

"This is Lucas Raycevich."

Everyone looked confused. "Lucas, this is a surprise."

"You didn't actually think I was going to Nillace Park did you?" He replied, smugly. Everyone's eyes widened.

"Uh, no I guess not. But if you want to talk maybe we could arrange a meeting."

"Where are you now?"

I looked to my right for a second before answering. "I'm sitting in my office."

"I doubt that."

"Why would you doubt that?"

"If you were in your office right now we'd be having this conversation face to face."

*Disconnected*

* * *

><p><strong>Lucas' POV<strong>

"I've always wanted to do that!" I laughed closing the call. "You got it Lia?"

She responded with the safe on the wall hissing open and revealing a bunch of datapads. I didn't need to see her face to know she was smirking.

"Please," Lia said. "Remember who you're talking to."

_Oh, if only Kasumi was here now._

"You'd think getting a Quarian and a fugitive into a C-Sec office wouldn't be as easy as dressing them up as E-Sec troops," Shea said.

"Well we are talking about the organization that called a Geth a "Synthetic assistant", Phil said.

"What?" Lia asked.

"Nothing." Phil and I said at the same time. Lia gave us a long glance.

"Terran, you got all of the doors locked down?" I asked. Trying to change the subject.

"Yep and since all the windows are bullet proof they won't be getting through that way either. We'll take the emergency exit to the Cruisers."

"I've got a shuttle big enough for all of us, just give me the go and we'll be gone," Paul said over the comm.

"Roger that, we're out of here." I said, leaving the safe open just for shits and giggles. I gave a quick slap on the back of Phil's head with a look saying "What the fuck's wrong with you?" He just mouthed "Sorry" in return.

My friends and I entered the empty hallway, my assault rifle ready to bust any knee caps if necessary. We were on our way out when I heard a bunch of loud slamming on the right. I turned and saw Raz banging his fists on the windows, to no avail. I couldn't help but grin.

"Wow Lucas, either Raz really hates that window, or he really hates you," Josh laughed.

"Officers, do your job and place this traitor under arrest!"

"Yeah, we'll get right on that," Bjorn said sarcastically, walking away.

"You're not getting anywhere Raycevich! You'll be out of the fucking job and living on the streets if you don't give up those files right now!"

"Aww, you're gonna make me cry." I was getting way too much enjoyment out of this. "Anyway gotta go, Cheerio." I made an L with my hand and put it on my forehead just before leaving.

I heard more slamming as I left the hallway, only getting more laughter from the rest of us. When we got to the garage I saw Paul waving us over into a shuttle like the one in ME2, with enough space for eight. We all got in and drove off to the one place where C-Sec would never go after us.

* * *

><p>The Boss was happy enough to let us land at his gang's hideout without any hiccups. Raz sent a few units to try and catch us but they were too late, and Paul was able to throw them off course without much of a fuss. Now I was in the Hideout's made up bar with a soda and the datapads I recovered from Raz's safe. I was able to go over all of Project Izus. The whole idea was that the majority of C-Sec members were Turians, but after every month more and more species (mostly Human) were signing up. Everybody knew that Pallin wasn't big on it but he didn't disagree with the fact that the Humans in his group seemed to be doing a fine job. However there was still some opposition. Raz was always against humans but once the attack happened on the Citadel, he found a perfect opportunity to hack his plan for removing Humans from C-Sec permanently. Now as much as that hit me, it wasn't nothing compared to what was next to it. In the files was the name of another person in on the plan.<p>

Executor Pallin.

* * *

><p><strong>Authors Note : DUN DUN DUN. I hope you enjoyed and tune in next time, shit's about to get real. As always, thank you for reading and PEACE.<strong>


	19. Chapter 15 Part 3 : Finale

**Chapter 15 Part 3 of 4**

**March 14th, 2182**

**4:00 PM, Citadel Time**

**Zion Hideout, Bachjert Ward**

"He's doing that thing again," Shea said as I paced back in forth.

"I don't fucking get it!" I shouted, with the eight of us in the room. "Why would Pallin go through with this?"

"You do know Pallin was not the...nicest guy towards humans, right?" Phil said.

"Oh, there's no denying he's a dick, but that doesn't answer why he's involved." I lazily sat down. As much as Pallin disliked Humans he wouldn't just discard his agents like razors. Not only did I find out Pallin was involved, I still didn't have everything on "Project Izus". My mind was spinning trying to figure out what to do next, with only one answer coming up.

"Fuck it, I need to talk to him." I said, exiting the room leaving everybody else to their thoughts, or a bag of chips in Shea's case. I went outside to get some fresh artificial air as I opened my Omni-tool to connect a call to a certain British bugger.

"It's a good thing you got out of there mate. Raz was about ready to blow the door up." Ian said.

"Good. Do you know where Pallin is?"

"The Executor? I saw him leaving his office a while ago, but he's not back yet." He said, clearly confused.

"Any idea when he will be back?"

"Nope, not a clue."

_Dammit. _"Thanks, I'll see you later Ian." I sighed.

"Bye."

*Disconnected*

_Great, now my next biggest perp-who also happens to be my boss-has fucked off to some unknown location without telling anyone. Terran can't use his equipment at C-Sec since and Zion doesn't have that kind of tech. The only other people that'd have that kind of stuff are the military, the government and news corps...Wait a minute. _I went through my contacts again and hit Call next to the name.

Calling : Emily W. CNN

"So, do you have anything for me?" She asked.

"I'm calling to make you a deal."

"What kind of deal?"

"You find me the location of a certain Turian and I will give you a story Al-Jilani would take a thousand punches for."

"Just give me a name."

* * *

><p><strong>Pallin's POV<strong>

"This is getting way out of hand Raz," I said, standing in the quiet outskirts of Zakera.

"Be that as it may, it changes nothing. We are still going through with this."

I sighed, knowing that he was right.

"However, due to your detective running around rogue, I'm going to need these two guards to start following you. Just in case he tries anything funny."

I looked and saw two barefaced Turians walking up to me, assault rifles in hand. If they were barefaced it meant they were probably freelancers that never trained in the military. Bastards.

"I'm sure this wont be too much of an inconvenience."

I looked up again and nodded. "No, it's no problem."

"Good. Now I have to get back to the station," Raz said, leaving in his cruiser parked near by.

I went to head out to get some kind of beverage to help me relax, even if that was highly unlikely. I was moving out of the dark and empty area when I heard two clanks. I looked around to find both of the guards on the ground, bullet hole in each head. I pulled out my sidearm and took cover behind one of the walls. I peeked around the corner not seeing anything. I moved forward quickly, founding two doors on both of my sides. I was going to keep moving forward when I heard some noise coming from the left. I slowly stepped inside, with the door closing behind me. The room was dark, but had a little blue light reflection from the parts in the ceiling.

"Sir."

I froze.

* * *

><p><strong>Lucas' POV<strong>

Pallin didn't turn around quickly like I thought he would, instead he lowered his weapon and kept staring ahead until he spoke.

"It was you who took out those two guards wasn't it?"

"Maybe." I shrugged.

"That's okay, most barefaced Turians are failures or traitors." He turned around to face me. "Like someone I know." He raised his weapon and pointed it right between my eyes. A long silence was broken as I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding.

"Now get out of here." He said, in his commanding voice.

I stood my ground and didn't move an inch.

"Don't make me do this Lucas."

I took a long deep breath before doing something that I knew was stupid. I stepped closer to the gun barrel, along with my possibility of death.

"Lucas!" He hissed, pressing the gun against my chest.

"I know everything about it Pallin." He blinked when I didn't call him Sir. "I know about Raz being Von Klerx's son, I know about Project Izus, I know about your involvement." I took a deep breath. "The only thing I don't know is why."

He kept the gun on my chest, I could see the silhouettes of my friends with their weapons ready. While Pallin gave me a long gaze. I could feel the gun on my chest with less pressure. Pallin slowly lowered it to the ground. He sighed.

"I have a daughter, being held in the next building to be blown up. And if I don't go through with the plan, they're going to kill her."

I just stared. I didn't trust my voice.

* * *

><p>Back at the Zion Hideout, The Boss gave us some privacy, even with the Executor arriving. Pallin handed me a datapad that he said very few people saw. It contained holos of him and his wife, back when he was starting out in C-Sec after leaving the military. But there was no recent pictures.<p>

"How did it happen?" I asked Pallin, his head hung.

"Terra Nova group; it was only a few years after the Relay 314 incident and they were having another protest like they always have. My wife was attacked during it, she was a popular figure at the time. We didn't have the medical technology we do now, and she didn't get treatment fast enough. She died holding my hand."

I emulated his head. I couldn't imagine having to sit and watch your wife die in front of you, completely powerless.

"Shit man." I muttered.

"I haven't thought about those days in a long time." He sighed.

"What about your daughter?"

"I handed her off to some relatives. She grew up, did her time in the military. She was supposed to get a job at Armax Arsenal today. Unfortunately their companies main building is where they're going to plant a bomb, and if I don't head back to my office in time, their going to kill her."

"We're not going to let that happen." I said, trying to reassure him.

"If you're thinking about going to that building forget it. They've got guards everywhere and the minute I contact C-Sec to head there Raz will know something is up."

"Well there's got to be some way." Terran said.

"No, I'm not letting my daughter suffer for something I did!" Pallin responded.

"Pallin, you've worked at C-Sec longer than anybody. You know as well as I what's going to happen if you go through with everything Raz is telling you." I said.

"If they really didn't want to not harm her why would they put her in the same building where they planted a bomb?" Josh added.

Pallin looked up at us, clearly debating in his head. I couldn't pretend to understand what he was going through but he knew the only option."

"You're going to need a plan before assaulting the building." Pallin said. "Raz has hundreds if not thousands of corrupt officers following him. It's pretty safe to say they're going to see you coming."

I smirked_. _"No, they're not going to see this coming."

* * *

><p><strong>Raz's POV<strong>

I was in my command room, surrounded by the familiar sounds of ringing Omni-tools and beeping holographic key pads. I turned left at the sound of an opening door to find Pallin returning with his bodyguards.

"Ah, glad you could make it Executor. After all I'm sure you would like to see your daughter in one piece away from smoldering rubble." I gave him a reassuring smile. He narrowed his eyes.

"Just let me know when it's done. I'll be in my office," he said. \

I gestured two bodyguards to follow him. Soon I heard one of the tech heads calling my name. I found a female Turian at one of the desks.

"Yes?"

"We've got an incoming call from one of the agents at the building Sir, says it's urgent."

"Put him through."

A few seconds later, a chat window came up and showed a Turian on what looked like the 20th floor.

"Sir, we just picked up multiple vehicles headed in the direction of this building."

"So? It's probably just workers running late."

"That's what I thought too, but each vehicle has ten heat signatures and there are five of them..." He stopped when in the view I could see the vehicles. Trailing off but remaining in formation except for one in the middle. It kept its height level to the floor the agent was on. The agent started running, causing me to see nothing but a shaky view of the floor. A second later I heard the sound of metal crashing into glass, along with the distinct whine of a propulsion drive. The sound of a gun shot was cut off as the transmission went dead.

"Get me Bostra Team on the line!" I told everyone in the room.

A new screen came up depicting an agent on a higher floor, chaos in the background.

"Yes Sir?" One of them said.

"Give me a sit rip!"

"Five vehicles just hit multiple floors of the building! Probably something around fifty troops are now inside."

"What's the status of Katrina?"

"We've still got her hostage, but we're going to have to get..." His teammate dropped to the ground, blue blood squirting out of his head.

"Man down!" The agent yelled. The camera shook until it was on the ground facing the window. In the corner view he could see another vehicle heading up in the background before the transmission got cut.

"Get the recording of the last call and pause it at 20.5!"

The screen reopened and rewound to show the vehicle in a still shot. It was hard to make out but the back had a big red label of the letter Z.

_That son of a bitch!_

* * *

><p><strong>Paul's POV<strong>

"I can't believe you're just as bullshit with that thing in real life as you were in the games," I said on the comm channel after seeing him snipe the two baddies.

"I know, isn't it awesome!" Lucas said, clearly way too excited.

"Terran, Lia, you okay over there?" We had dropped them off on the same building as Lucas to hack anything that came up from a safe distance.

"I'm fine," Lia said.

"Not as excited as Captain Price over here, but I'm good." Terran said

"Oh please, Captain Price doesn't have shit on me," Lucas said, just before another shot rang through the comm.

"He really does enjoy that too much," Phil commented.

"Okay we're here." I was about to land when bullets started hitting the vehicle. _Don't they know machine guns don't fucking do anything to this? _"Could you guys take care of those assholes?"

"Sure thing governor!" Phil said in his horrible British impersonation. Both doors opened, Phil and Bjorn taking the left side and Josh and Shea taking the right. Within a few seconds the troops on the roof were taken care of while I set the shuttle to land. I exited the pilot's chair, making sure my M-96 Mattock was ready before stepping out.

"Okay we're good." Josh said, activating his ear piece.

We opened a door to a large staircase down to the floor of the building. I started to head down with the others.

"Alright, from what I can tell, there were two agents guarding at a closed off door on the 40th floor." Terran said.

"The key word being 'were'," Lucas added.

"We think that might be where Pallin's daughter is being held. What floor are you on?" Lia asked.

I quickly looked at one of the wall signs. "We just passed the 55th," I said.

"What about civilians?" Bjorn said.

"I just talked to one of the Zion squad leaders; they've got a couple groups evacuated from the building but they still need more time so keep your eyes open." Lucas said.

"Alright, let's do this," Shea said.

A few moments later we were on the 40th floor. All of the noise coming from different floors sound muffled. Bjorn and I were in front with him using an M-22 shotgun. The others were just behind us, all armed with assault rifles. We kept moving forward when I heard some foot steps on the other side of the floor, which belonged to armored Turians.

"Contact!" I took cover behind a wall while Bjorn did the same on the other side. I checked around the wall, relieved to find no civilians caught in the crossfire.

"Okay, we'll all fire back at the same time on my one, ready?" Everybody nodded.

"Okay, three, two...

"Fuck it!" Phil screamed and ran out of cover spraying his assault rifle. Not even a second later he was behind a wall in front of me.

"My shields are down. God damn it!" He said.

"Yeah, cause you're a jerk!"

"Why couldn't you have just waited one second?" Bjorn asked, with his currently useless weapon.

"I got bored!"

I rolled my eyes, amazed he could get bored in a firefight while in a building with a bomb.

"Lucas, could you please do the honors?" Shea said into his ear piece. We looked at him, confused.

"You got it." Lucas said on the other line.

Next thing I knew a bullet went through one of the windows on the side, piercing one of the Turian's skull. The Turian next to him watched in horror, giving Shea and I time to pepper him with rounds. I took cover just before the last enemy fired at us. A second later he fell to the ground with another bullet through his head. _Phil was right, he really is enjoying this too much._

"Alright, the room you're looking for is three doors ahead on your left," Terran said.

We moved forward until we came to the door in question. When it opened we were greeted by two dead guards. We split up looking for the door until Shea announced he found one in the back corner. Terran and Lia went ahead and did their magic. The door opened, revealing a female Turian with purple face tattoos and equally purple eyes. She looked worried but saw that our weapons were lowered.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Katrina Pallin. Who are you?"

"We're here to help, we'll explain the rest later," Shea said, offering her a hand.

She was hesitant, but took it and got to her feet. Bjorn took out his sidearm and held it out to her.

"You know how to use one of these?" He asked.

She took it immediately. "I was in the Turian Military for seven years," she said, loading the gun to make sure it was ready to fire.

"Okay Lucas, we've got her," I said into the comm.

"Good, Zion just picked up some more civilians from the building. I'd say three more pickups and the building will be evacuated."

"What about enemies?"

"There's a few left on the...Hold up, a bunch just made their way up the stairs near your floor so you might wanna get moving."

"Alright everyone, back the way we came, let's go!" I gestured Katrina to follow.

As we ran down the hallway I could hear bullets going by. I looked behind to see five more agents, all firing. My shields blocked two of them, but that wasn't going to last.

"Just keep moving, I'll try to pick them off!" Lucas yelled on the channel.

I took his advice and kept running. Katrina was shooting while running to try and pin them down. It was only then I realized, she wouldn't have any shields. I heard a yelp. I looked and saw Katrina on the ground still firing at the enemies while her left hand was clenching her bleeding chest.

"Guys what's going on? I can't see anything," Lucas yelled in the comm chat.

"Katrina's just been hit!" Bjorn said.

"How bad?"

"She's alive but we need to get out of here now!" Josh said, firing his assault rifle at an enemy lowering his shields.

"Shea, Josh, take Katrina up the stairs, we'll cover you!" They were the closest to her while Bjorn, Phil and I took cover.

"Okay!" They said and got Katrina on her feet, assisting up the twenty floors.

I hammered more rounds into the enemy Josh weakened taking him down. One of the teammates tried to move up only to receive a taste of Bjorn's shotgun causing his body fly to the ground. With the second guy dead, it all went quiet. It was a few moments before I looked to the other two who nodded. Bjorn moved up, Phil and I following very slowly. Just as Bjorn peeked around his gun was pushed out of his hands, another Turian went for a punch. Bjorn performed his usual cheap move of grabbing the guy's arm and twisting it around until it snapped. The Turian howled in pain. Bjorn went for a punch but the Turian blocked it and head butted him. Bjorn staggered back before ducking the Turian's punch and slamming into him. We couldn't use our weapons, they were too close.

"Lucas can you snipe this bastard?" I asked, Bjorn still having at it.

"I can't see the bastard! You're gonna have to drag him into my view."

Another idea popped into my head, but Bjorn beat me to it. He countered the Turian with one hard kick making the Turian stagger back several feet. We were about to light him up when he face-planted to the ground with a hole in his chest. Bjorn was lying on his back taking deep breaths, he had a mark on his head from the head butt, but that was it.

"Fucking finally!" Bjorn exhaled, getting himself up.

"Uh, guys we gotta go, like now!" Phil said, running back to the stairs.

Bjorn and I soon followed, not wanting to deal with anymore of these assholes. After a few moments and many heavy breaths we were at the top where I saw Katrina in the shuttle. Someone applied Medi-gel covering her wound but it wouldn't last forever. I jumped into the cockpit and quickly checked to make sure everyone was inside. I moved the vehicle toward the building next door. We landed and revealed Lucas opening the door.

"You guys alright?" He asked.

"Yeah, but we need to get out of here quickly. Katrina's in bad shape. What about you?" Bjorn said.

"We're fine," Lia said

"Zion just finished getting the civilians out, they only took minor injuries. They didn't get a single shot off at us." Lucas said, putting the rifle away to look at Katrina. "Shit," he said examining the wound.

"The Medi-gel is starting to wear off," Shea said.

"Paul, how close are we to the Hideout?" Lucas asked.

"About ten minutes at the pace we're going now."

"Fuck!"

"She's going to bleed to death if we don't get there any faster," Terran said.

"Well sorry but I can't really..."

"I can stop it."

We all stopped and looked at person who said that. As a result Phil noticed all the eyes on him.

"How?" Lucas asked, breaking the silence.

"Well, I did want to be a doctor back home, and I picked up a few things while I was at C-Sec."

Lucas looked at me to confirm. I had noticed Phil coming out of the Med Bay often. He couldn't have been hitting on Rebecca since she hasn't slapped him yet. I nodded.

"Okay, get to it." He said.

Phil immediately got to work. My was foot welded to the pedal and dodging traffic, not even acknowledging the building behind us as it became a massive fireball. _I just hope we have enough time._

* * *

><p><strong>Authors Note : DUN DUN DUN! AGAIN! Just one more chapter and an Epilogue and this story is over. Stay tuned and thanks for reading, PEACE.<strong>

**Shoutout : Empeorie (So you're in a Self insert? A writers guide) has rebooted his own SI http:/www. fanfiction .net /s/7852373/1/ Mass_Energy_One (Remove Spaces) and is a pretty good read as of now, so check it out. I'm also posting it because it has a cameo of me and therefore I have to post it to boost my pathetic ego, PEACE.**


	20. Chapter 15 Part 4 : Finale

**Authors Note : This chapter was going to be longer, but that's because Part 3 was originally going to be the short one. Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4 out of 4<strong>

**March 14th, 2182**

**6:00 PM, Citadel Time**

**Zion Hideout, Bachjert Ward**

**Lucas' POV**

I was standing outside, hands clasped behind my back as I stared out into the evening sky, going through the outcomes in my head over and over. Taking in all the considerations, all the dangers, all the pros, all the cons, I wanted to think through it even more, but time was running out. After the news about Katrina, there was only one thing to do. I hit Call on my Omni-tool.

Calling : V. Pallin. Executor, C-Sec.

"You ready?" I asked.

"Yes. You?"

"Yes."

"Then let's finish this."

* * *

><p><strong>Raz's POV<strong>

"There is still a lot of buzz going around about the Armax building explosion," Emily Wong announced on the Holo-screen. "While people suspect it's another terrorist attack similar to the one a few months ago, there seems to be another side to it. Witnesses say they saw anonymous Turians and Zion gang members fighting each other, however Zion was spotted evacuating civilians out of the building before the explosion. At the moment we don't have any idea who these attackers are but the infamous gang are being called heroes, rather than the drug traffickers they are. We have been trying to contact C-Sec to try and get a grasp of the situation, but they're declining requests. I'm Emily Wong for Citadel News Net."

"Fuck!" I threw my datapad at the Holo-screen. "In a sea of agents, how do they take them all out!" Everyone else in the office remained silent. "I can't believe any of this!"

*Ring*

I jammed my finger onto the Answer sign on my Omni-tool. "What!"

"As a person that's worked at C-Sec for a year, I can tell you from experience that screaming and throwing shit doesn't help."

"Lucas Raycevich!"

"Yeah, hiss my name again, maybe some magic will happen."

"Is that why you called me? Just so you can rub something in my face?"

"No, I actually called to say I want to meet up. For real this time. No cameras, no guns, no agents, just us."

"Where are you?"

"I'm in a room with an empty safe, which I think is your room. I'll be waiting."

*Disconnected*

* * *

><p><strong>Lucas' POV<strong>

I sat on the man's chair with my feet on the table, browsing through some news on my Omni-tool about our little raid with Zion. I had just finished reading another article when I saw the front door open and Raz entered.

"No gun or vest. I'm impressed."

"What? You're not already impressed." I said, mocking disappointment.

"I must admit, I never figured you'd ever be able to convince Zion to do something to help the people."

"You just have to get to know them, they aren't actually that bad. Like they say, it's good to have friends in high places."

"I imagine Pallin is not going to be one of them."

"Why?"

"'Why?' His daughter is dead, I can't see him handing you work anytime soon."

"You know, when you phrase it like that, it doesn't sound all that likely." I lifted my legs off the desk. "But that's okay, he never really was much of a friend anyway."

Right then, Raz pulled out a sidearm and pointed it at my head.

"You should have known I wasn't going to listen to any of your rules," he said.

"I knew."

The door opened to reveal Bjorn, Shea, Terran, Lia, Josh, Phil, Paul, Ian, Garrus, Izan, Johan, Bailey, Chellick and even Rebecca pointing their guns at him. I leaned back in the chair.

"Thanks for the help guys."

"Anytime," Izan said.

Despite everything, Raz didn't release his pistol. Another door opened in the background to reveal fifty agents walking in, Vindicators ready to fire.

"Come on Lucas, this is pathetic. I've got an entire Battalion at my disposal. What makes you think bringing a few of your friends is suddenly going to end this?"

I got on my feet and walked around the desk to stand in front of him. "I forgot to tell you about my new job when I was put on L.O.A." I pulled out my other badge. "Alliance Special Investigator."

"You know that the Alliance doesn't have any more authority than C-Sec right?"

"I know, but being part of the Alliance does have one or two perks." I gestured to the outside window, with a perfect view of dozens of shuttles heading towards the building. Their doors opened, allowing human troops armed with M-8 Avengers to bust into our floor. More of the shuttles landed to reveal armed Asari, Salarians and Turians, quickly overpowering Raz's forces completely. I smirked. Raz had a bewildered look on his face as he lowered his pistol to the ground, along with all of his troops.

"You see," I started. "I didn't have all of the files on Project Izus as you very well knew. Because you were the one that handed some of it to Pallin. So while I was busy saving lives your team was about to end, Pallin was retrieving the rest of them for me. Once I sent him the rest, he might have accidentally sent them to all of the Government, Military and News organizations in Citadel Space."

Raz's face changed from bewilderment to anger.

I continued. "You can imagine how some people might have found that...unsettling. Once they heard about the project, the Alliance announced my involvement and allowed me to call in a force that'd be able to shut down every merc organization in the galaxy if I wanted to. So, Raz Victus or _Hans Klerx_, on behalf of the Council races, the Systems Alliance Military and of course Citadel Security," I said holding up my C-Sec badge. "You're under arrest for conspiracy, treason and murder."

Garrus slammed the cuffs on Raz and dragged him away. I stared at the sight with a smile when Shea came up to me.

"What, no cheap one liners?"

"I was too lazy to think of any." I shrugged.

"Oh come on. Couldn't you have said something like, Checkmate?"

"The only movie that ever got away with using that line was Revolver."

"UK version right?"

"Yeah, US version sucked ass."

Before I started going into geek mode again, I saw Pallin entering the floor. He gestured me to follow, and I followed.

* * *

><p>We stood outside a window in the Med Bay, Katrina finally got the treatment she needed. Phil was able to patch her up, but it was only a temporary fix. In order to get the help she needed we had to get her to a proper Med Bay. But since we were fugitives and Raz would have caused another stir, we had to shut down the case first. The two Zion members that agreed to have their face paint covered were able to foll Raz and got Pallin into his office. Katrina didn't have much time but she came out okay. She was now sitting on her bed next to a couple of the Medics including Rebecca. Pallin looked happy and relieved, but also seemed puzzled. I then figured out what was troubling him.<p>

"Aren't you going to go talk to her?"

"Lucas, she hasn't seen me in twenty years."

"So?"

"'So?' Don't you think that will put a bit of a sting on our relationship?"

"It will, but what's wrong with knowing her father still cares about her?"

Pallin didn't answer and kept staring at Katrina through the window. Still debating in his head. I reached into my right pocket and pulled out a photo I had looked at almost everyday since I got it. I handed it to Pallin who looked and saw the photo of my parents and I.

"I know what it's like to lose a family. Don't let her go through that forever," I said.

He looked back and forth from the photo to me before handing it back and walking into the Med Bay. I couldn't hear anything, but at the same time I didn't want to eavesdrop anyways. She looked shocked at first, until Pallin bent down and the two hugged. Katrina mouthed something and was on the verge of tears as Pallin rubbed the back of her head, calming her.

"Good to know he's not a heartless bastard." A British voice said next to me.

I turned and saw Ian watching the two Turians. "Yeah, it is." I said, looking back.

"You had to break a lot of rules to get through this you know," Ian pointed out.

"I know. But if I didn't Pallin probably wouldn't be talking to his daughter right now."

"And a lot of Humans would be out of a job and or dead."

He walked away leaving that thought in my head. The truth was, due to the standard protocol, it stopped me from doing my job properly and got in the way of justice. I could now understand why Garrus went to a shit hole like Omega after ME1. When the system that you work for, that's about bringing justice and their own rules get in the way of that, it does start to get into your head. I looked at the photo of my family and left the C-Sec building with a new idea in my mind. One that was never going to leave.

**Now Playing : Daft Punk (Tron : Legacy OST) - Finale**

* * *

><p><strong>Authors Note : I would put a final, really long Authors Note but there's still the Epilogue. I'll try to get it out soon. I hope you enjoyed the case and as always, PEACE.<strong>


	21. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

**March 15th, 2182**

**9:00 AM, Citadel Time**

**C-Sec Academy**

I walked into the building, bearing seven badges and a datapad. Walking past the front desk and entering the elevator as I thought about what I had discussed last night.

* * *

><p><em>Everybody had entered my apartment at once, except Lia who was out picking a few things up. Which was fine, I didn't want her in this anyway. I gestured to have a seat around the table in the kitchen.<em>

"_So, why did you call us over here?" Bjorn asked._

_I took a deep breath. "I've got this idea but, it's kind of...crazy."_

"_So? You're just going to tell us anyway," Phil pointed out._

_"Fair point," I said. "Alright. So, you know how much shit we had to go through to get Raz right?"_

"_Yeah," Josh said slowly._

"_Well, I thought about what I happened. I figured that if I hadn't gotten fired from C-Sec and stayed on the original case, Pallin's daughter would have been dead, Humanity's reputation would have been ruined, thousands of corrupt officers would have gotten away and Raz would have come out a hero." _

"_Your point?" Paul asked._

"_We wouldn't have been able to bring that bastard down if we were stuck with the rules." _

"_So what, are you going to leave C-Sec, become a Spectre to save the world your way?" Shea said._

"_Something like that."_

_Everybody stared as if a Varren had eaten my face._

"_You're right. You are crazy," Terran said._

"_Listen, just hear me out. What if we left C-Sec and took matters into our own hands?"_

"_What, like become vigilantes? Are you insane? Who the hell besides comic book characters did that work for?" Paul said._

"_Worked for Garrus on Omega."_

"_Until his entire team got killed," Phil said._

"_But we won't have anybody betraying us like Sidones."_

"_What about C-Sec? Wouldn't they catch us within a few days?"_

"_If a drunk old turd like Harkin could dodge C-Sec by using an alias, so can we." _

_Phil sighed. "There's still no way we can do this." _

"_Are you sure about that? We all, excluding Terran have at least some form of Combat training. Terran could hack anything in the galaxy and Paul was able to keep up with an ace level racing driver. We can pull this off!"_

"_It's still completely insane," Terran said._

"_Terran. We are in a video game universe turned reality by some bastard that controls our brains, able to change events at his own fucking will and let a couple of teens like us become detectives." I stepped in front of him. "Shit got crazy a long time ago!"_

_Everybody was back to staring at me._

"_You know what? Maybe I am going crazy. I'm just...I'm done." I flopped down onto one of the chairs. I sat there for a long while, looking aimlessly at the wall. I turned my head once I heard a noise and saw Bjorn moving to my side of the table. Now it was his turn to earn the stares._

"_Bjorn?" Paul asked slowly._

"_What?"_

"_Are you seriously agreeing to this?" _

"_Well...it could be fun," Bjorn said shyly._

"_Who's to say saving the world can't be fun?" I said._

_Everybody still looked dismissive of the idea. Until one of them said._

"_I'm in." _

_Josh moved his chair next to mine, earning stares from the remaining three. I said three because Shea joined in too._

"_You know that I don't like rules," he said._

_Shea and I looked at Terran with puppy dog eyes._

"_Come on Terran!" Shea said, mocking sadness. "Aren't you going to join your two best pals?"_

"_You could be the fucking one-man Anonymous of the Citadel!"_

_There was more relentless begging until he sighed and joined._

_We were all about to beg Paul but he exclaimed "Fuck it!" and moved to our side of the table, leaving one last victim._

"_Phil, Phil, Phil, Phil," Paul repeated._

"_Phil!" Bjorn said._

"_Phil!"_

"_Phil!"_

"_Phil!"_

"_Shut up!" He screamed at the top of his lungs, earning laughs from all of us. "Fine, I'm fucking joining!"_

"_Okay. We're all in this?" There was a round of "Yes" and "Sure"'s._

"_So we're going to keep this secret right?" Bjorn asked._

"_Yes, we don't tell anyone," Terran said._

"_Not even Lia?" I asked._

"_Not even Lia. I don't want her to know about this."_

_*Cough* *Cough*_

_We all turned and saw a certain Quarian with her arms crossed. _

"_Yeah, you might want to work on the secret bit," Shea smirked._

* * *

><p>Thankfully Lia let us, (or more accurately Terran) go through with the idea. I passed many familiar faces in the Detectives Section before I arrived in front of the Executors office. I took a deep breath before entering. Pallin was behind his desk as usual, looking more upbeat than usual but considering his daughter's recovery I wasn't surprised.<p>

"Ah, Detective," He said. "I just finished speaking to Captain Anderson of the Alliance. Said that due to your work the Alliance now has one less danger to worry about." I was about to speak before I heard him mutter. "Which means they're even closer with the council."

"I couldn't have done it with out the help I got Sir."

"Emily Wong also gave her thanks for the exclusive footage of Raz's arrest. Was that really necessary?" He asked, annoyed.

"She helped me find you when you were out of the office. I figured I'd return a favor." I shrugged.

"Understandable. So, what are you doing here? There are no cases for you right now."

_Better get this over with before I change my mind. _I placed the datapad and small case on his desk. He looked at me questioningly before slowly taking the case. Opening it to find seven C-Sec badges. He looked up at me.

"What is this?"

"My friends and I have decided we're going to resign from Citadel Security." Pallin looked shocked. I continued. "After the events of yesterday, I think you can understand."

"Lucas, we're all putting our lives on the line here. As much as we try to avoid it, having to fight criminal threats is part of the job."

"Yeah, but not from C-Sec officers."

Pallin's grew angry. "Those were Raz's men Lucas, they had nothing to do with this organization."

"Except for the fact that they were all officers until Raz's arrest. We were pushed too far Sir, and if I stay here my mind is just going to keep coming back to those events. I thought you of all people would understand this." I didn't like lying to Pallin but what else could I do? Pallin sighed and looked at me. He handed me back the case of badges. Before I could say anything he held up his hand.

"If you ever get caught using those at a crime scene without coming to us then you will be charged. But, you and your friends deserve to keep them."

I took the case and looked at my badge displaying the numbers that meant so much to me before closing the case.

"Thank you Sir."

"You don't have to call me that anymore."

He held out his hand. Unlike exactly a year ago, it didn't seemed forced. It was out of genuine respect. I returned the gesture.

"Now Mr. Raycevich, I'm going to have to kindly ask you to step off of government property."

"Will do, Pallin." I turned and stepped into the Detective Section to retrieve things from my desk, for the last time.

_A year ago I was a typical teen living on a small Island in BC. Now I'm spending my time putting unsacred bastards away in a universe I thought was fiction, I still don't have the answers as to why and I probably never will. _I got everything from my desk and made my way out. I didn't spend time visiting anybody since the people I cared about that still worked at C-Sec came over every weekend. _But it doesn't matter. In truth none of it matters. As silly as my mother's statement sounded sometimes it always stuck in my mind: "Lucas is his own man." If I didn't do what I'm doing now, it wouldn't be me. It would be somebody else, asking an entirely different set of questions. I never thought Max Payne would have changed my outlook on life but hey, it wasn't my first big surprise and what was I doing? Oh yeah, getting to the elevator. _I stepped in and let it take me away. _Maybe now, things will be different._

* * *

><p><strong>March 16th, 2183<strong>

**9:30 AM, Citadel Time**

**Alliance Interview Room #6**

Things were different, in more ways than I ever imagined. I sat on the opposing side of the table with my Red/White armor and helmet. I stared at the table until a door opened and saw a blue suited Alliance Captain.

"Good Morning, Alcatraz."

**To Be Continued.**

* * *

><p><strong>Authors Note : Okay, time for the super long AN. It's funny thinking back to when I started in October, being so afraid to hit the post button on my account like I was when I started on Youtube. After everything I'm glad I wrote this and I'm happy with how it came out over all. I'm not happy with the earlier chapters and I was tempted to restart but I was too far into it. For everybody that AlertedFavorited/Reviewed and stuck with this story, you guys are AWESOME! And if I could send you all cookies in the mail I would but, A. It'd be creepy if I knew all your addresses and B. my family's kind of broke right now. Also a big kudos to my mother for big things like proof reading this story and small things like keeping me safe and making kick ass dinners (Mom if you ever read this, don't kill me!). As you can tell by the ending, this isn't the end of MA and I plan to make this a series. Not only has writing this story helped with my first foray into Fiction writing but it has also been a lot of fun. I have a lot of idea's on where to take this series with the sequel and when we make the inevitable jump of joining Shepard. Don't quote me, but I hope to start the sequel about a week or two after ME3's release. Well, enough of me rambling, time to go. Make sure to check out all of the songs and shout outs in the previous chapters (Especially Empeorie and Stuch). I hope you enjoyed this story and as always, PEACE.**


	22. Sequel or Author's Note

**Authors Note **

**As you can tell by the story saying "Complete" this story is finished. However the first chapter of the sequel is now up : http:/www. fanfiction .net /s/7923370/1/Mass_Affect_2_The_Wild_Bunch (Remove Spaces). Thank you to everybody that subscribed, reviewed and favorited Mass Affect and I hope you will enjoy Mass Affect 2 : The Wild Bunch. As always, PEACE.**


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